I think he was strong-armed by lawyers into buying it. Lawyers called his bluff. Elon either had to buy Twitter or pay the fine for bluffing with the offer and intention of buying. Elon's ego prevented him from paying the fine and getting out.
Every e-scooter is one less Uber on the road. Building bike lanes is the answer, not banning scooters. "Oh the Urbanity" did a fantastic video about it on YouTube, highly recommended.
There's also a counter argument. Houses are also over regulated with exclusionary zoning. If they like to de-regulate housing then we can start the discussion from there.
I'm all for it. I'd like them to lead by example. If this was actually enforced I bet my bottom dollar that public transport/mirco-mobility issues would be completely solved in 15 years max.
My guess for the real reason is that they buy off-the-shelf components from suppliers and don't have enough money to design and order a custom motherboard with a headphone jack.
The irony is that I have seen news articles about parents killing their own kids while taking their SUV out of the driveway. And yes, they had bought those because it was "safe" for the kids. The following is just one example you can find many more on the internet.
Yes.