Musk demands Delaware judge McCormick recuse herself from Tesla lawsuits
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Elon Musk on Wednesday asked that a Delaware judge recuse herself from lawsuits against Tesla, arguing that she recently demonstrated bias against him when she liked an anti-Musk post on LinkedIn.
Musk’s lawyers filed a motion for recusal in the Delaware Court of Chancery, which included a screenshot of Judge Kathaleen McCormick liking the social media post celebrating Musk’s $2 billion legal loss in a separate case. The lawyers noted that the incident “did not exist in isolation.”
The lawyers were referring to the fact that McCormick had presided over high-stakes cases involving Musk and the tech billionaire, accusing the judge of bias dating back years. The current friction with the judge follows the hostility Musk has faced from the left in recent years, including when he became a close ally of President Donald Trump in 2024 and during the first months of the administration.
Musk’s lawyers said McCormick appeared to encourage a lawyer on LinkedIn who posted a message mocking Musk’s legal defeat in a California fraud case. McCormick is currently presiding over separate derivative litigation brought by Tesla shareholders who alleged that Musk harmed the company by overpaying himself and board members. The lawyers said one of McCormick’s staffers also liked another anti-Musk post related to Musk’s ongoing litigation.
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President Donald Trump and Elon Musk attend a press conference in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, May 30, 2025. (Reuters/Nathan Howard)
“This post to which the Court reacted and another to which a Court staff member reacted are not merely negative criticisms of Mr. Musk and his attorneys, they are inflammatory,” Musk’s lawyers wrote.
The lawyers said “the very facts underlying the litigation celebrated in the messages are directly at issue in the consolidated and coordinated actions.”
McCormick later deactivated her LinkedIn account, and in a letter to attorneys in the case, she denied supporting the anti-Musk message.
“Either I didn’t click the ‘support’ icon at all, or I did it accidentally,” McCormick wrote. “I don’t think I did it by accident.”
screenshot of LinkedIn post (Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware)
McCormick presided over a separate, high-profile lawsuit in 2022 brought by Twitter, now called Musk ended up moving forward with the acquisition and later said he felt compelled to do so because he believed McCormick was biased against him.
“It was unlikely that we would win the [Twitter] “This was, in fact, the same judge who overturned my Tesla option grant which was subsequently overturned by the Delaware Supreme Court. So it is accurate to say that it was, this judge was not favorable to me. Not objective.”
In another lawsuit, McCormick twice canceled a multibillion-dollar pay package for Musk and the Tesla board in 2024, claiming they breached their fiduciary duties and that Musk effectively controlled the board. The Delaware Supreme Court reinstated the wage program but upheld McCormick’s underlying findings.
Musk responded to a conservative influencer’s X-rated post about McCormick that year, writing “absolute corruption” after the influencer noted that she had previously worked at a Delaware law firm that donated to former President Joe Biden.
Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk has indicated he may support Republican candidates in the upcoming midterm elections. (BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)
Musk’s grievances against McCormick began amid a national campaign against the tech billionaire as he began weighing in on politics, speaking out against the Democratic Party ahead of the 2022 midterm elections and supporting Trump in the 2024 election.
He became head of Trump’s Department of Government Effectiveness in 2025, serving as a special government employee as he sought to identify government overspending and fraud, which elevated his status as a political target by the left. Democratic lawmakers have condemned Musk’s efforts during the DOGE protests, while Tesla sites were targeted by rioters last year, with critics calling Musk an unelected billionaire working in the administration.
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Trump and Musk had a public falling out last spring, when Musk openly opposed the budget bill signed by the president, known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Since then, the two have been spotted chatting at various public events.
