In April 2022 Musk signed a binding agreement to buy Twitter for $54.20 a share (about $44 billion). In May he tweeted the deal was "temporarily on hold" over spam-account questions, and in July he tried to terminate it — so the criticism that he tried to back out has a real basis. Twitter sued in the Delaware Court of Chancery to force the deal through. But the story ends the opposite of a successful scam: facing a trial he was widely expected to lose, Musk reversed course and closed the acquisition on 27 October 2022 at the original full price of $54.20 per share, with no discount. He did not wriggle out and he did not extract a lower price; he paid exactly what he had agreed. The episode shows a chaotic, costly attempt to renegotiate that failed — not a fraud that succeeded.