Hid did overpay, but hindsight is 20/20
And he did rush into the deal.
I expect based on the recent revelations that Twitter is internally in pretty bad shape. He agreed to waive full due diligence.
He set the price of the offer based on what he could pay, not on what he could get it for.
When the market turned a corner the valuation tanked.
When Twitters internal problems came to light it tanked more.
When he tried to back out the deal it tanked more.
Musk timed the market perfectly to buy near the top, and personally helped turn his acquisition into a wounded animal.
Because of the attempt to back out and the court fight, he is now hated by employees of the company he soon will own. He has made personal beefs with senior management, and the company has it's own culture which is antithetical to how he runs the rest of his empire.
Those he didn't already order fired are deciding to flee in droves, and silicon valleys finest headhunters taste blood in the water. And all of the old timers probably won't even need to work again after the buyout.
He thinks of himself as a visionary, but the rest of Twitter's users is what makes the platform, and how many share his vision?
The web is littered with the bones of the last dozen platforms that filled the role Twitter did. Twitter isn't clever, it doesn't do that much, it was in the right place at the right moment, and was the lucky lottery winner. It survived because it stayed simple, and avoided screwing up it's success by not messing with it's user bases, but it has been running on VC money and IPO practically the whole time. The gamblers got lucky, the found a sucker with a big wallet. That was the business plan.
As for what comes next? Odds are between his tantrums and probably re-platforming the people the company justifiably removed, Musk will turn Twitter into a toxic waste pit. He will jack around with the app to suit his personal whims, and he has to monetize the hell out of and already marginally profitable venture. The people that built the companies core infrastructure are in play and may leave for all of the reasons above.
I can't wait to see what Ted Dziuba has to say about this one. I feel like he should take the old brown bess off the mantle and come out of retirement for one more post to put a capstone on the grave of one the ages unicorns.