Didn't they sue him into shelling out $44 billion?
He voluntarily offered to pay $44 billion and voluntarily signed a contract saying he'd do so. Insisting that he follow through with what he voluntarily made a binding commitment to do is hardly "cornering". The debt that has been taken on was his idea, part of the original offer he made, it's not like he didn't plan for Twitter having that debt to pay off.
I mean, he did commit to buying them $44 billion. If he didn't want to buy them, he shouldn't have signed a contract agreeing to do so. You can't argue that Musk doesn't know what a contract is and can't get decent legal advice.
He signed the contract in a totally different market environment. Twitter's board knew this but still proceeded to sue him nonetheless. Did they understand the consequences for the company and the employees? Sure they did but went on anyway.
> He signed the contract in a totally different market environment.
As if 13 billion extra debt would've not mattered when he signed the contract?
He made an unsolicited offer, the board didn't even want him to buy it and explored a bunch of options to prevent a hostile takeover, so he kept pushing, then they said fine, and then the market turned, and then he started walking it back trying to find any reason to back out, but eventually couldn't. This was 100% a self-inflicted wound.