Key Points:
- Elon Musk’s legal team is demanding Judge Kathaleen McCormick step down from two Tesla lawsuits.
- They accuse her of showing bias by allegedly supporting a LinkedIn post critical of Musk.
- McCormick denies intentionally supporting the post, citing “suspicious activity” on her account.
- This comes after McCormick previously ruled against Musk’s massive 2018 pay package.
Elon Musk’s legal team is demanding that Judge Kathaleen McCormick, from the Delaware Court of Chancery, remove herself from two ongoing Tesla lawsuits. They claim she showed bias by allegedly supporting a LinkedIn post that was critical of Musk.
“Because of the Court’s recent public support of LinkedIn posts that create a perception of bias against Mr. Musk in these cases, recusal is necessary and justified,” Musk’s attorneys wrote in their motion for recusal on Wednesday. They added, “These cases should be given to another randomly chosen judicial officer of this Court.”
The LinkedIn post that McCormick allegedly reacted to with an emoji celebrated a verdict from a San Francisco federal court. That ruling could cost Musk over $2 billion, as a jury found he had defrauded Twitter investors leading up to his purchase of the social network.
McCormick responded with a letter to Musk’s attorneys. In it, she said she did not read the full LinkedIn post, did not support it, and didn’t mean to click any emoji showing support. She suggested it could have been an accidental click. She also mentioned in the letter that she had reported “suspicious activity” on her account to LinkedIn.
However, Quinn Emanuel partner Alex Spiro, an attorney for Musk, told CNBC in an email that he has asked LinkedIn about the issue and stated, “I don’t believe there’s any basis for the claim it was a ‘glitch.’” LinkedIn, which Microsoft owns, did not immediately comment when asked.
McCormick first became a target of Musk’s anger after she ordered Tesla to cancel his 2018 CEO pay package, worth about $56 billion in options. She made this ruling while overseeing a shareholder lawsuit called Tornetta v. Musk. After that decision, Musk moved his businesses, including Tesla, out of Delaware, officially incorporating them in Texas and Nevada. He even encouraged other companies to do the same.
In 2025, Delaware’s Supreme Court said that Musk’s 2018 pay package must be reinstated. They decided that McCormick’s earlier decision was too extreme and didn’t give Tesla a chance to propose fair compensation for Musk.
Despite that, Tesla and Musk still have two cases moving forward in Delaware courts under Judge McCormick. One case is about compensation for Tesla directors, and the other is a combined shareholder lawsuit. Investors in that suit claim that Musk violated his duties to Tesla when he started xAI, a potential competitor in artificial intelligence.
Earlier this year, Tesla invested $2 billion into xAI. Then, Musk’s aerospace and defense company, SpaceX, bought xAI, which converted Tesla’s stock into SpaceX holdings.
