your numbers are off. Go and look at the financials. They paid down $10Billion, from the sales of Quest Software, SourceOne, and other businesses. taking the number to ~$42.5Billion. Unfortunately it says that DFS (Dell Financial Services) added ~$10B in liabilities taking the total up to now ~$53B. Also lost over $4Billion last year with Storage sinking 11% and Server sales cooling. VMware revenue made up 50% of FCF (Free cash Flow) meaning that they are tapping into VMware's bank account in order to pay bills. Even if VMware buys Dell in a reverse merger there is not enough free capital in order for VMware to stay cash positive. VMware would become no better than Nutanix, or Pure posting losses each year until they sell off parts of the company. This is not speculation, read the 10K, this is really bad. Looking forward to "Smartest Guys in the Room, chapter 2 : Michael Dell"
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/dell-technologies-inc-dvmt-q4-153400043.html