he would have been sued by twitter for the full price, and would have had to pay.

So what you're saying is that he's been treating his lawyers the same way he's now treating Twitter.

I doubt very much anyone let him walk into a trap that bad. He had to have been kicking and screaming the entire way.

And even worse than that, he would have had to have been deposed before paying for it. A bunch of his conversations about the deal were already released in discovery. Twitter lawyers were salivating about catching Elon in a lie at the deposition. It’s notable Musk was willing to deal juuust before the deposition was finally going to happen.