Do we really need to assign a financial motive to Elon Musk?! Musk is in it for his own entertainment. Period. And that greed changes as often as the phases of the moon. It's a good story to his following to come out financially ahead. It's also a good story to the libertarian crowd to drag the issues of bot accounts and free speech into court. And if the deal were to have gone through, I'm sure Musk would have made a great story forming an Alphabet/Berkshire-like holding company across Tesla, SpaceX, and his other amusements. And of course daily amusement of adding a Twitter edit button, an irony mode, etc.

But what will the legacy of all this mess be? It's looking a lot like Howard Hughes, except that Hughes successfully monetized his stage presence. Elon has officially thrown in the towel, and spit in the face of his wider audience in the process.