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Be careful what you like on social media\u2014you never know when a billionaire\u2019s lawyers might be going over your reactions with a fine-tooth comb.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Elon Musk\u2019s 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<\/a>, Musk\u2019s legal team requested that Delaware Chancery Court Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick remove herself from a pair of Tesla lawsuits to \u201cavoid an appearance of bias.\u201d<\/p>\n 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\u2019s legal team claims that the post went beyond normal criticism into \u201cinflammatory\u201d territory by \u201cinstructing Mr. Musk and his attorneys at Quinn Emanuel to be \u2018deeply ashamed,\u2019 sneering at Mr. Musk and his attorneys for an adverse multibillion-dollar jury verdict, and cheering a facile nonjudicial notion of justice: \u2018the little guy\u2019 prevailing over \u2018the richest man in the world.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n As he began his bid for Twitter, Musk made a series of public pronouncements about the social network\u2019s spam problem\u2014a well-known issue, not a new one\u2014and claimed the deal was on ice until the company\u2019s leadership could prove that its spam and bot rates matched SEC disclosures. At the time, Musk\u2019s 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\u2019s monetary standards: The damages in that case could add up to $2.6 billion<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n In an included screenshot of McCormick\u2019s LinkedIn profile, the judge\u2019s account is listed as \u201csupporting\u201d 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\u2019t click the icon at all and had reported suspicious activity to the platform, locking her account in the process. \u201cI also have not read the post, aside from the text visible in the screenshot that was sent by text to me last night,\u201d McCormick wrote in a filing acknowledging the motion for recusal.\u00a0<\/p>\n It\u2019s not surprising that Musk\u2019s 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\u2014and Musk has a long history of being enraged by them. In early 2024, the Delaware judge ruled that Musk shouldn\u2019t receive a Tesla pay package <\/a>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\u2019s businesses fled the state<\/a> for greener, friendlier legal pastures in Texas.<\/p>\n \u201cSpaceX has moved its state of incorporation from Delaware to Texas!\u201d Musk wrote on X in early 2024. \u201cIf your company is still incorporated in Delaware, I recommend moving to another state as soon as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n