Great charitable interpretations! I wish you had done this impartially for both parties, but no worries! Now, let's look at the situation realistically. Let's say that instead of Steve's side asking for clarifications, he had agreed to pay Christian $10M when he said "I could make it really easy on you, if you think Apollo is costing you $20 million per year, cut me a check for $10 million and we can both skip off into the sunset. Six months of use. We're good. That's mostly a joke." Would Christian then say, "Oh no, I was merely making a joke," or would he accept the offer?
And do you think if Steve had made this offer, would we have even heard a second of this recording?
I mean, come on guys. He literally said "I can make it easy on you," named a price, and then clarified that he was mostly joking.
edit: Thank you for catching that! I've now changed "Steve" with "Steve's side."
