Elon Musk said over the weekend that Twitter's advertising revenue has fallen by 50% since he bought the company, and that it's not cash flow positive.
I don’t think it was even that. He was so 100% going to lose the fight to not buy Twitter that even for someone with his resources it wasn’t worth fighting. He made a weak attempt to embarrass Twitter into backing out due to public opinion, but didn’t really have any options after that. He just fucked up that magnificently with the initial contract.
Musk didn't pay $44bn. He paid $26bn, then $5bn was from other investors and the remaining $13bn was a loan Twitter took out to buy itself on Musk's behalf.
Yay, leveraged buyouts! They totally aren't used to avoid tax and kill businesses!