Musk vs. the ‘like’ button: Tesla CEO challenges judge over LinkedIn activity
Be careful what you like on social media—you never know when a billionaire’s lawyers might be going over your reactions with a fine-tooth comb.
Elon Musk’s lawyers requested that a judge with a history of presiding over his legal battles step aside this week. The reason? A post she liked on LinkedIn. In a motion for recusal, Musk’s legal team requested that Delaware Chancery Court Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick remove herself from a pair of Tesla lawsuits to “avoid an appearance of bias.”
The post in question celebrated a verdict in a San Francisco federal court that found Musk defrauded Twitter investors in the chaotic days before he bought the social network. In the filing, Musk’s legal team claims that the post went beyond normal criticism into “inflammatory” territory by “instructing Mr. Musk and his attorneys at Quinn Emanuel to be ‘deeply ashamed,’ sneering at Mr. Musk and his attorneys for an adverse multibillion-dollar jury verdict, and cheering a facile nonjudicial notion of justice: ‘the little guy’ prevailing over ‘the richest man in the world.’”
As he began his bid for Twitter, Musk made a series of public pronouncements about the social network’s spam problem—a well-known issue, not a new one—and claimed the deal was on ice until the company’s leadership could prove that its spam and bot rates matched SEC disclosures. At the time, Musk’s sudden criticism of the company he sought to buy caused Twitter shares to plunge, essentially putting the company on clearance. A lot is on the line for Musk, at least by anyone else’s monetary standards: The damages in that case could add up to $2.6 billion.
In an included screenshot of McCormick’s LinkedIn profile, the judge’s account is listed as “supporting” the post, indicating that she clicked an emoji of a hand holding a heart in reaction to it. McCormick claims that the emoji reaction was potentially accidental, but she maintains that she didn’t click the icon at all and had reported suspicious activity to the platform, locking her account in the process. “I also have not read the post, aside from the text visible in the screenshot that was sent by text to me last night,” McCormick wrote in a filing acknowledging the motion for recusal.
It’s not surprising that Musk’s legal team would take the unusual step of accusing McCormick of firing off a biased emoji to get some distance from the Delaware judge. She has a history of issuing Musk stinging legal losses—and Musk has a long history of being enraged by them. In early 2024, the Delaware judge ruled that Musk shouldn’t receive a Tesla pay package worth north of $55 billion, though the court later reversed that decision. McCormick is still assigned to a handful of high-profile Tesla cases from the years before Musk’s businesses fled the state for greener, friendlier legal pastures in Texas.
“SpaceX has moved its state of incorporation from Delaware to Texas!” Musk wrote on X in early 2024. “If your company is still incorporated in Delaware, I recommend moving to another state as soon as possible.”