And still be the wealthiest individual on the planet.
He could do it another 5 times and still be a billionaire.
Yes, I’m aware his net worth doesn’t mean liquid assets but the point remains.
No one can lose 40B and come out unscathed, not even Musk.
But basically from the moment he tried to buy Twitter, he's been ruining that reputation. It started with the business press, who have more of an incentive to see through the BS, and who quickly pointed out that it was a clown show of a takeover even before the Delaware courts forced him to buy it. That alone put a major dent in Tesla's stock price.
Now everybody has gotten to see how bad he is at running Twitter. Most of us didn't know shit about launching satellites, but a lot more people understood Twitter. By objective measures, things have gone terribly, and there have been waves and waves of stories showing that Musk is not half the genius he was painted as. Which has caused a lot of questions being asked about all of his businesses.
So now we're entering an age of electric cars, with global intent to switch. But Tesla, the nominal leader, has a stock price down 40% from its peak, and with widespread questions about how well it can really do. And part of that is definitely brand damage from Musk; I recently saw a Tesla with a bumper sticker that said, "When we bought it, we didn't know he was an asshole." Surely that has something to do with weakening sales despite previously unheard-of discounts.
Maybe Musk will get it together, and mainly for the sake of others, I hope so. But if I had to bet, it would bet that his launching a bid for Twitter will be seen as a turning point where he began a long slide into irrelevance.
That said, his historical pattern is not to sell out so quickly, but rather to keep iterating until he and his team get it right.
Even Musk values it at $20 billion: https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/26/23657182/elon-musk-twitte...
And that was a few months ago. I'd argue that one of Twitter's most valuable assets, the blue checkmark, has been irrevocably destroyed. And if I were looking at buying it, I'd also be concerned that the technical infrastructure is a significantly impaired asset, possibly one of negative value.
Why rush things when you can fail 5 times and still try again?