Yeah, people tend to forget how this all started. He just wanted to see under the hood and he was told that the only way he could do that was if he bought the company.
He saw a big opportunity to both get what he wanted and to manipulate the stock market in a big way. So he made a credible offer thinking that he was smart enough to create a loophole that would give him a way out. His loophole didn't pan out although the stock market manipulation arguably did.
He got too far along in the process to back out and the SEC doesn't fuck around. There was no option other than to actually make good on his offer to buy the company. I don't think he ever truly wanted to own Twitter, but I never thought he would set the company ablaze in such a spectacular fashion.