I am not foolish enough to bet against Musk, though I am also not betting on him in this case. On the sidelines for this one. While I own Tesla stock I do not think I would buy Twitter if it were public.
I grant that a lot he has touched has turned to gold. But I also feel this is his over-reach. It did not have to be that way, but he just paid so darn much for Twitter that it was always going to be on a knife's edge. In addition to overpaying, something he freely admits, he took on a mountain of floating rate debt at exactly the wrong time to take interest rate risk. The rates on that debt now range from 9.75% and 11.75% (those are capped rates and would be higher without the caps). When rates were near zero it would be much easier to borrow to build. That is why there was so much private equity money freely available for so long. But that spigot has been closed.
We all get short tempered and irrational when we are facing the potential for financial ruin. And doesn't that description fit with a lot of his behavior lately? Has there ever, in the history of finance, been a business leader who got on stage and was recorded telling his customers, who he desperately needs, to go f*** themselves?