> Remember, he didn't want to buy Twitter. He pitched it in the first place purely in an attempt to get leverage over the board. He didn't really want to own it.
He didn't just "pitch" it, he made a buyout offer with all the attendant SEC filings. Not the sort of thing you can accidentally do with a slip of the tongue!
Given everything he has said and done about Twitter, I think it's pretty clear he has no idea how contracts work and is very bitter about ever having to follow them.
He's hardly the first person to get rich flouting the law.
Plus it's not at all clear how much credit he should get for the companies he invested in, aside from being a good fundraiser and hype man. There are plenty of stories about employees having to manage him to avoid him stepping on critical work.
What is your alternative explanation for how it turned out? "Didn't understand what he signed up for" is the only explanation that makes sense to me, given my second choice is "he's a fucking idiot that fell into money". Though I don't think Musk is nearly as smart as he (or a lot of his fans) thinks he is, he's no idiot, so...
And you don't have to understand contract law to start a company (or in the majority of Musk's cases, invest in an existing company), that's what lawyers are for.
He didn't just "pitch" it, he made a buyout offer with all the attendant SEC filings. Not the sort of thing you can accidentally do with a slip of the tongue!