How much of that was raised from other investors? I don’t know myself.

My understanding is that he got capital by using his Tesla stock as collateral - having liquidated all at once would have damaged its value, which happened anyway to a lesser extent. I don't know how this debt is structured now, but I would be very surprised if running the company to the ground would simply eliminate it.

> This is a substantial amount of his wealth, close to a fourth of it at that time

He debt financed the buyout. While he had to put up a non-trivial amount of his own money he also borrowed a non-trivial amount of money. Part of Twitter's problems today is paying an extra billion dollars a year in interest payments on those loans.