This Might Not Be Over
It all depends on how confident Twitter are at winning in court.
The contract to merge included all sorts of "performance" clauses, which Musk has singularly failed to live up to. Twitter's shareholders, if they went to court and won, could get the $44billion for the merger, plus quite a lot of damages for the lack of "performance" on Musk's part. That's potentially quite a few $billion more (especially as the delay has deprived them of the opportunity to re-invest their proceeds from the merger as they might have wished).
On the face of it, Twitter has won this one and would win more, for sure. The signs were that the Judge was not taking any nonesense and, reputedly, doesn't like such agreements being messed around with. This move by Musk is either confirmation that he too thinks that the Judge would rule against him and this U turn is another bluff to try and get out of the performance damages that may be coming against him.
I also wonder if, once a court case has been asked for, whether the Judge can insist on hearing the case. I think (IANAL) she can, as some of the wording elsewhere is that "provided the court agrees to stay the case", rather than just Twitter saying "OK". It might be interesting, that hearing, as effectively Twitter (if they were minded to agree to Musk's new proposal) would be pleading on Musk's behalf with the Judge, but so far she's shown zero interesting in giving Musk anything at all.
There's also the matter of "when the debt financing comes into place", another condition Musk has put on this. If I were Twitter, I'd be saying "no" to that, I'd be saying "pay up now or see you in court".
Biting the hand that feeds IT
