[RobAtticus]

Numerous people (Matt Levine, etc) smarter than me have written about how there was no $1B break up fee. That fee only came into play if something prevented the deal, like regulators blocking it. Him having buyer's remorse was not sufficient to trigger that clause.

[rurp]

This is true, but he could have negotiated a breakup fee with Twitter if he'd wanted to. The board likely would have been more than happy to take $10B from him to kill the deal, which would have saved him a bunch of cash and headache in the long run. But obviously cutting losses isn't how Elon likes to roll; he'd rather burn the company down out of spite.