Why Is Elon Musk Lighting Billions of Dollars on Fire?

There was no plan. Elon instantly regretted the deal. He spent months trash talking Twitter. Twitter's board would have been sued 7 ways to Sunday had they let Elon off the hook. Then he suddenly got the idea that he could flip Twitter for less than the cost of a settlement. Wrong as it turns out. The idea that he would drive it bankrupt intentionally is absurd. His creditors would end up owning it. Musk and other equity investors would be wiped out. That could trigger more conditions on his margin debt. It's all as bad and chaotic as it appears to be.

Good article. It doesn’t really answer the headline question other than to essentially say “because he can”.

> Or, in an extreme case, Twitter could go bankrupt.

The article doesn't really entertain the most logical answer: because that's part of the plan. Musk is trying to cause Twitter to declare bankruptcy so that it can be rebuilt. Musk is already on record as saying that the software stack needs a complete re-write. Maybe he thinks the company needs a complete reboot.

At the very least, a bankruptcy could wipe out a large chunk of the debt the company now holds post-acquisition.