Elon Musk is known for his perennial feuds with powerful people, as with President Donald Trump, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. But his latest clash is with someone whose name you don’t know: the chancellor (now formerly) presiding over two lawsuits against Tesla.
Delaware Chancery Court Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick is reassigning two cases involving Musk after the chancellor allegedly reacted in support of a LinkedIn post that criticized the Tesla founder.
Last week, Musk’s attorneys demanded that the Delaware Chancery Court chancellor recuse herself from the cases. In a new letter released on Monday, McCormick denied the motion for recusal but stated she was reassigning the cases instead. “The motion for recusal rests on a false premise—that I support a LinkedIn post about Mr. Musk, which I do not in fact support,” read the letter. “The motion for recusal is denied. But the motion for reassignment is granted.”
This all stems from an alleged “reaction” to a post on LinkedIn. In a screenshot of the post—which now appears to be deleted, but was included in the lawyers’ original filing—a California-based jury consultant, Harry Plotkin, sarcastically apologized to Musk and his longtime lawyers at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan after a California jury ruled the X owner misled Twitter investors before buying the company in 2022. Plotkin, who does not appear to be involved in the Delaware lawsuit involving Tesla, worked as a jury consultant for the plaintiffs in the Pampena v. Musk case in California, according to Musk’s lawyers.
“Sorry, Elon. Sorry, Quinn Emanuel. Thanks $2 billion for your help in this trial. It was a pleasure working against you,” Plotkin allegedly wrote in the LinkedIn post, according to the filing. “Congratulations to the trial team at Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy, LLP and Bottini Law for standing up for the little guy against the richest man in the world,” the post said.
The chancellor, according to the filing, allegedly reacted to the post, and Musk’s lawyers asserted that was enough to get her thrown from the case. McCormick is presiding over two separate derivative cases including Musk. The first case involves a dispute over how much in legal fees the lawyers who won a case against Musk should be paid. The other is an ongoing case against the Tesla board of directors that alleges they paid themselves with excessive compensation packages.
In a motion filed last week, the lawyers shared a screenshot from March 23 that showed an account, which had the name “Katie McCormick” and included a profile picture of the chancellor, reacted with “support”—one of five LinkedIn reactions that include liking, celebrating, loving a post, or finding a post insightful or funny.
Musk’s lawyers added that most people who reacted to the post used the “like” function and not “support.” The lawsuit alleges that later that day, McCormick deactivated her account. Musk’s lawyers cited several Delaware Supreme Court case laws that protect against judge bias in cases and when judges are obliged to recuse themselves.
“In light 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 warranted,” Musk’s lawyers wrote in the filing.
McCormick denied the request to recuse herself but did agree to reassign the three cases involving Musk that she was presiding over on Monday.
In a letter to both the plaintiffs and Musk’s attorneys on Tuesday, McCormick wrote she does not support the post and denied having read the post, beyond a screenshot that was sent to her on March 23.
“I either did not click the ‘support’ icon at all, or I did so accidentally,” McCormick wrote in the letter. After seeing a screenshot on March 23 of the post and the alleged reaction, she reported the “suspicious activity to LinkedIn,” she wrote. When she later attempted to log in to the platform, she claimed her account was locked. Her letter also confirmed Musk’s lawyers’ filing in that she deactivated her account.
McCormick wrote she had planned to send the letter before Musk’s attorneys filed a motion for recusal. In the meantime, the chancellor placed the two shareholder cases on pause, Reuters reported.
In another claim in the filing, Musk’s lawyers also alleged that a court staffer (whose LinkedIn profile allegedly said she worked for McCormick, according to the filing) liked a post that included a screenshot of an article about Musk’s testimony in the California case, in which he testified that he believed McCormick was biased against him. Musk’s lawyers argue this is further grounds for recusal.
“The supportive reactions to those posts, by accounts under the control of the Court and a member of court staff, independently create a perception of bias in these cases that the Court supports the outcome in the Pampena case and would support a similar outcome for allegations made here,” Musk’s lawyers wrote in the filing.
Tesla, Musk’s lawyers, and McCormick did not immediately respond to Fortune’s request for comment.
Not their first clash
Musk and McCormick have been facing off for years over Tesla’s board of directors compensation, including Musk’s. In 2024, McCormick ruled in favor of Tesla shareholders who sued Musk over his $55 billion compensation, which they claimed was the product of sham negotiation with the board, which was not independent of him. In 2022, the chancellor presided over Twitter’s lawsuit against Musk to complete his $44 billion purchase of Twitter after he attempted to back out.
Musk’s lawyers argue that the pair’s history is particularly relevant due to McCormick’s history with Musk and ruling against his compensation packages.
While the alleged comments from McCormick and her staff member involve Musk only, his lawyers argued that bias against him could affect his codefendants and Tesla. They point to past rulings from McCormick, including the one regarding Musk’s compensation. The chancellor ordered Tesla to pay the plaintiff’s $345 million in legal fees because “[the] Plaintiff had to piece together what transpired in a transaction process involving a close-knit group of Musk loyalists.”
“[W]e were unlikely to win the case in Delaware because the judge was extremely biased against me,” Musk said in a March 4 testimony in California. “This was, in fact, the same judge that struck my Tesla option grant that was subsequently overturned by the Delaware Supreme Court. So it’s accurate to say she was—that that judge was not favorably inclined to me. Not objective.”
