I don't think he wants the deal to go through. Unclear what the end-game is. But paying 3x the annual NASA budget for a social media app is clearly too much. U

I don't think he wants the deal to go through. Unclear what the end-game is. But paying 3x the annual NASA budget for a social media app is clearly too much. Users have value, but it's too inflated. If he broke the contract (and lost one billion), added another billion to create a new social media platform(that's quite the funding!) that measured up to his standards, spent an additional 6 billion dollars in advertising in the US (putting him in the number one ad spend – ahead of Comcast), it would still be a bargain. Heck, he could pay for people to switch from Twitter to his platform and still be ahead. Why bother? Torpedoing Twitter (by blaming the deal going south on them not wanting 'free speech') could energize his supporters – and people in the sidelines – enough to switch away from the sinking ship. And he also gets to sell TSLA shares high (ostensibly to finance the deal) and rebuy low. So, win-win? If the deal actually goes through, he gets the users, but he also gets a huge mess that he has to clean up.