Not to defend Elon, but he spent 40B on a company that dropped in value between the day of his bid and the day of closing by almost half (if i remember correctly). He tried to back out of it but then went forward by twitter at the time sued to enforce the transaction.

150M is small in comparison to the 20B he overpaid by. Investors were well compensated.

Coming from someone who invested after it dropped by almost half (and never saw any value in Twitter to begin with once it stopped being an SMS platform first and foremost), the reason that happened was of his own making. And fortunately one cannot go around making binding agreements to take a company private, go around trashing the value with unfounded, incorrect, nonsensical statements and just back out of the deal. Consistency in enforcement makes Delaware pretty appealing for companies.

And yes, I was well compensated and must thank him personally. Funded an apartment renovation with the profits, got out a bit early at slightly below $ 51,- per share. I can however not say whether this settlement is justifiable, just because another party profited that generally does not justify other harm, but I am not knowledgeable in regards to the legal situation, so happy to hear what the legal grounding here was.

My recollection may be hazy, but wasn’t most of that drop in value due to investors freaking out that this guy self-evidently had no plan at all and tried to get out of it (and shit-talking it all the way) before his purchase was enforced?

1%. That’ll teach him and send a message to anyone who dare do the same thing.

That's not a fine, that's just a transaction fee

That's not a transaction fee, that's dropped change.