It was capricious. He offered to buy Twitter on a lark. If you believe some accounts, because an ex girlfriend complained that the Babylon Bee was being excluded for some other reason than being religious bigots.

Then someone at Twitter had the presence of mind to hire lawyers that could write an airtight contract.

Then, fully expecting to prevail, Elon threw a public tantrum for months, with the goal of being told to go away. Instead he got taken to court to force him to follow through.

THEN, with insufficient planning due to a court date approaching, he decided to write the check, and he dragged along the banks that earlier thought they were on a cool adventure with Elon, not a spiteful tantrum episode. Maybe he thought he could "flip" Twitter and either make money or at least lose less than a settlement would have cost.

He was totally unprepared and got his ass handed to him.

Now it is just amusing to watch.