It was meaningless to Musk for all of about a week, when he came off his ketamine binge and realized what a stupid offer he’d made. But it was a done deal by that point.
According to Reddit[0], it might not have been meaningless to employees with unvested RSUs. They lacked an acceleration clause, so instead of immediately becoming 100% vested at $54.20, the schedule remained intact with a cash payout instead of stock. If the cash payout was relative to current company value, then it was a massive hit.
[0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/Twitter/comments/yykn1e/if_you_work...
I'm talking about the investors and banks that ponied up over half the purchase funds, and the employees that didn't have life changing payouts who were laid off.
I suppose he has the money to pay back the investors and banks now though. Not sure what kinda return they were expecting vs what they got.