It wasn’t a waste of money to prevent another studio buying them up and using those properties against them. They decimated potential competition, that’s very valuable.
That’s why consolidation like this really needs more anti-trust scrutiny. If Fox was going to be sold, it should never have been Disney that was allowed to buy it. They eliminated a major competitor and took all its resources away from everyone else, only to cut jobs and leave those properties to languish in obscurity. Because no one is allowed to make money in Hollywood except them. That’s not a healthy market.