Could be a ploy by Musk to drive down the price.

This has to be deliberate and if so bravo, even if it's not it's playing these fucks like a piano.

There's a BILLION dollar clause that if either party pulls the deal.
This means that Twitter can't just "take their ball and go home".

Now that there's a grace period to gather funding, Musk has sent a vibration through the very structure and shaken it's core...."are Twitter users real" as the valuation was based on it.

Twitter was valued at a price and Musk offered MORE than that valuation based on projections of how Twitter users have joined the platform and how the brand grew itself......if those valuations can't be proven Musk has asked for the SEC itself to come in to verify the data , the methodology, in short the legitimacy of Twitter itself (perhaps ALL social media will be subject to this scrutiny and perhaps future lawsuits based on what is found)

This means that its not longer "he said she said" it's the supposed governing body behind all trade. This could eventually lead to things much much larger...not just "NFT's" but crypto-currencies themselves.

If it is shown that Twitter WAS knowing both allowing and perhaps creating artificial accounts for the purpose to deceive as well as falsely value themselves in order to use that valuation in negotiations with where they've made deals (let's say for bloatware purposes) or to generate a false market value to deceive their stockholders......then this could either cause the stock to PLUMMET to an actual value OR it might get pulled from the SEC and have their license barred. (which would devalue the company and prevent it from expanding via public shareholder money).

If that's the case Musk (or someone else) could lowball twitter (as the brand name would be destroyed) and buy it for nickels on the dollar.

If it's proven that Twitter is in fact exactly what they say they are then Musk buys them anyways, in a deal which he is paying $33.50 /share and has a plan in place to grow the brand to doubling the value and nothing changes anyway.

In short it's a no lose all win situation he's positioned himself in.