Why would short-term market price fluctuations matter if he were serious? Real corporate acquisitions are based on looking at the target, figuring out how much money could be made by the new owner, and bidding accordingly. If he were buying it for business reasons, a general market decline wouldn't change anything, because it would be years before he might try to IPO again. And if it wasn't for business reasons, market fluctuations matter even less.
I think the real problem is Musk is a very polarizing personality and everyone can only speculate his intentions using their colored lens.
I stand by my opinion that he intended to close the deal one way or another, but wanted more favorable pricing. Your IPO profit is eaten away if you paid more than you could have when taking the company private.
I don't think Twitter truly was worth what the markets claimed it was worth, much the same as Tesla stock is still detached from the underlying asset. Mania in the markets will set the price at whatever people are willing to pay.
I firmly believe Musk saw a threat to the ability for healthy public discourse to be carried out and was willing to jump on the grenade that was an overvalued Twitter, until a point at which it became vastly overvalued.
That said: I do agree he has made a series of missteps at the helm of Twitter. He came in seeking to change far too much, far too quickly, and Twitter has a rough road ahead of it to get to even self sustaining, especially on the eve of an economic calamity.
