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He might if he wants their options not to vest. [Edit: Or to have to pay their golden parachute.]

I wonder if even Musk would be so publicly ruthless as that?

I wonder how many his employees in Tesla/SpaceX/where ever are currently incentivised by stock options, who’d watch their boss doing that to Twitter people and wonder why they bother working evenings and weekends, if the options can be yanked as cruelly as that?

Musk made an offer, voluntarily closed off his ability to back out, then tried to back out and couldn't. He has been thoroughly outmaneuvered by Twitter's management (or outmaneuvered himself, same effect). So I'm not super high on his ability to foresee consequences at the moment.

Also, because of being outmaneuvered, he may be seeking any chance to stick his finger in the eye of the people who did it. That the logical consequences will be that his finger gets cut off... well, as I said, I'm not sold on his foresight at the moment.

I think it was a good gamble. If old management had budged by even 1% or 2% of the original deal, the savings would have easily paid for all the lawyers Musk and Twitter had to hire. Just a calculated risk that didn’t pay off. That’s how calculated risks go sometimes.

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