Elon Musk’s lawyers want a Delaware judge to be removed from all cases related to his companies, reports Bloomberg. The judge in question is Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick, who Musk’s law firm Quinn Emanuel claimed had liked the “inflammatory” post and thereby created “a perception of bias against Mr. Musk in these cases, recusal is necessary and warranted”. Last week, a jury concluded that Elon Musk defrauded Twitter (now X) investors in 2022 to bring down purchase prices. As per the report, McCormick ‘liked’ a LinkedIn post celebrating his recent legal defeat in California.
Lawyer says liked the post celebrating Musk’s defeat accidentally
A jury consultant in the federal case, who had worked for the shareholders, shared a post on the social media platform writing: “Sorry, Elon. Sorry, Quinn Emanuel. Thanks $2 billion for your help in this trial. It was a pleasure working against you.”As report by Bloomberg, McCormick said she was not aware that she had liked the post until “LinkedIn recently reported that I hit the heart-in-hand icon intended to show a sign of ‘support’ concerning a LinkedIn post about Mr. Musk”.In a letter to attorneys, she said “I either did not click the ‘support’ icon at all, or I did so accidentally. I do not believe that I did it accidentally”.
Who is Kathaleen McCormick
Notably, McCormick is the lead judge of the Delaware Court of Chancery. She has twice rejected Musk’s 2018 pay package from Tesla, worth $56bn, citing the Tesla board’s lack of independence from the CEO. McCormick was also the judge in a 2022 Delaware case where Twitter’s board sought to force Elon Musk to complete his deal to buy the company after he threatened to back out.Interestingly, Musk told a jury earlier this “We were unlikely to win the case in Delaware because the judge [McCormick] was extremely biased against me”. Another Musk’s case that McCormick is part of a lawsuit brought by a City of Detroit pension fund in 2020, claiming that Tesla directors had been awarded excessive compensation.