"He offered new shares in the company at $54.20 — the same price Musk paid to take the company private."
He is in a bind: the LBO debt, even though it is only backed by Twitter equity, might encumber more, maybe most Twitter equity after a down round. While it seems outrageous and obviously unrealistic to ask for the same price, there might be little alternative to do so and hope for a friendly investor to pony up.