Delaware Judge Reassigns Elon Musk Cases After Bias Claims
A judge from the Delaware Court of Chancery, Katherine McCormick, announced on Monday that she will assign a case involving Elon Musk to another judge. This decision follows allegations of bias made by Musk’s legal team.
Recently, Musk’s lawyers formally requested McCormick to step down from two Tesla-related lawsuits, claiming she displayed bias against him. The tension arose after she reportedly reacted positively to a LinkedIn post that criticized Musk.
This post mentioned a court ruling that could potentially cost Musk over $2 billion related to accusations of defrauding Twitter’s investors. In response to the recusal request, McCormick sent a letter stating that she did not mean to show support for the post and had even flagged the potential suspicious activity on her LinkedIn account.
In her order issued on Monday, McCormick denied the request for her recusal but approved the motion for reassignment. She clarified, “The motion to retract is based on the false premise that I support my LinkedIn posts about Mr. Musk, when in fact I do not. I have no bias against the defendants in these cases.” She pointed out that she previously dismissed a case against Musk last year. Although the request to retract was denied, the reassignment motion was granted.
This shift signifies a notable change in the ongoing legal disputes between the judge and the billionaire. The reassignment means that McCormick’s fellow judges will now take on the cases.
The conflict between McCormick and Musk began after her decision in a 2024 shareholder lawsuit, where she instructed Tesla to annul Musk’s $56 billion CEO compensation package. Following that ruling, Musk relocated his company’s operations from Delaware to Texas and Nevada, encouraging others to do the same.
In 2025, the Delaware Supreme Court overturned McCormick’s ruling on the pay package, stating that the earlier court’s decision was overly harsh and failed to allow Tesla to propose a fair compensation to Musk.
In her Monday order, McCormick commented on the excessive media focus regarding the cases involving Musk, asserting that it interferes with justice. She expressed confidence in her colleagues’ ability to fairly handle the reassigned cases.
Even with McCormick stepping back, Tesla and Musk still face two ongoing legal issues in Delaware. One relates to compensation for Tesla’s directors, while the other involves a consolidated shareholder lawsuit claiming Musk violated his fiduciary responsibilities by founding xAI, which competes in the artificial intelligence sector.
