I suspect that both the "this is the backout penalty" and the SEC looking closely at him for trying to manipulate the price of Twitter discouraged him from backing out.
He was able to use it as an opportunity to sell some other significant amounts of stock as part of the "I am going to buy Twitter" that he would likely have been able to keep as cash if he was able to successfully back out of buying Twitter (though he's containing to sell stock).
A week later (April 11th), he decided not to join the board because he wouldn't be able to exceed a 14.9% cap.
Three days later, he makes a meme-ish offer of $54.20 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1514698036760530945
Side bit look at the stock prices and volumes - https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/TWTR/history/
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I suspect that both the "this is the backout penalty" and the SEC looking closely at him for trying to manipulate the price of Twitter discouraged him from backing out.
He was able to use it as an opportunity to sell some other significant amounts of stock as part of the "I am going to buy Twitter" that he would likely have been able to keep as cash if he was able to successfully back out of buying Twitter (though he's containing to sell stock).
https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/08/business/elon-musk-tesla-stoc...