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It’s not true, that’s how. It’s strange that such a comment would be taken seriously on HN!
More mass plain & simple. They are the same height & length, but a tiger is built while a lion is lithe, if you will.
Muscle density I would imagine. Neither lions nor tigers are likely to have a lot of extra fat.
Muscle density does not really change from one animal to another, so more likely just the amount of muscle if the premise is true.

And I am not sure that it is obvious that they have the same level of fat.

If there is more muscle on a creature of approximately the same volume, then the density of muscle has increased?
But how do you know that there is more muscle? You only know that there is more mass based on the premise.

My point is that muscle cells across animals don't have significantly differing density. However, different individuals (of any species) may have different levels of glycogen and fat embedded in the muscle, which may contribute to your point of "muscle density". It is just a loser terminology of muscle density as such. Even then, I doubt that muscles mass for the same volume of muscle could change that much across individuals.

All in all, I am just arguing for more specificity in your hypothesis, because I think in its current form, it isn't adding much clear detail.

I’m not sure where the confusion lies

https://www.quora.com/Are-male-African-lions-more-muscular-a...

This suggests tigers have 72% muscle mass vs 50% hence more density?

no, they're slightly bigger in size, depending on how you measure and not exactly "twice as heavy" but rather 10% - 20% heavier :)