I think the concept of settling for a lower price is a bit misleading, I feel like you are implying a do-over, but really the prices have tended not to change much (maybe ~5%). Also, personally, I think he's actually trying to walk away.

One example I can think of is LVMH made an offer for Tiffany in late 2019 for like $16.2B. It appeared to be unhappy about that price a few months later for some reason, people didn't want high end jewelry or something... They settled for like 3% less, but was that worth the bitterness? That's assuming that Arnault actually did want to go through with the deal, which, there I also believe genuinely was having second thoughts.

The reason I think Musk is trying to actually walk away is that I feel the pushing the bot thing is a pretty double-edged tactic. A lot of LVMH's arguments were that Tiffany was mismanaging the business above and beyond the covid environ i.e. not necessarily that the business is flawed, but the seller stopped caring once they sold it. The bot strat is kinda riskier because it's saying, the business is actually flawed, and the seller is misrepresenting it to me.

If it gets him out great, but if not it could potentially be like buying a house and throwing a lit molotov through the kitchen window on move-in day.