Is it possible that Elon's intention here has little to do with his personal fortune, or that of his employees? Maybe he simply sees the current situation as Twitter as a cancer on society, and sees himself in a unique position (ie. rich enough) to actually do something about it. Forget about the numbers, the digital marketing/pseudo-journalism industry pretty much needs to be cut down a notch, (or stop calling itself tech!). I see your point that he has a good chance at failure, but pretending the company /was/ successful or on some great path up until last week is just sad.