In Punishment For Shareholder Decision, Judge With Biden Ties Orders Musk’s Tesla To Pay Plaintiff Lawyers $18K Per Hour
Imagine this: You start a company, and you and your investors agree that if the business hits a specific target within a set time frame, you’ll get paid. Simple, right?
Now picture this — your shareholders not only approve the compensation plan once, but twice, overwhelmingly. But a man with nine shares of the company decides to sue over the compensation package, and a judge with ties to President Joe Biden’s political circle not only rules in of the individual with nine shares but orders your company to pay an exorbitant legal fee.
That’s what happened to Tesla CEO and Founder Elon Musk.
Even though 77 percent of Tesla’s shareholders approved the compensation package in June 2024, Chancellor Kathaleen St. Jude McCormick of Delaware ruled shareholders didn’t know enough when they voted (twice) and that Tesla’s board was not independent enough for the compensation package to hold.
To boot, McCormick awarded plaintiffs’ lawyers $345 million in legal fees — which comes out to roughly $18,000 per hour — because Tesla had great lawyers that forced the plaintiff lawyers to actually do work.
“The action was complex,” McCormick ruled. “Plaintiff faced some of the best law firms in the country, who put Plaintiff through their paces.”
Tesla, in a post on X, called the decision “wrong” and vowed to appeal.
“A Delaware judge just overturned a supermajority of shareholders who own Tesla and who voted twice to pay @elonmusk what he’s worth. The court’s decision is wrong, and we’re going to appeal. This ruling, if not overturned, means that judges and plaintiffs’ lawyers run Delaware companies rather than their rightful owners — the shareholders.”
This isn’t just any “Delaware judge,” however, as pointed out in a post on X by anonymous account KanekoaTheGreat. McCormick previously worked at Young Conaway, a firm that during the 2008 Democratic primaries donated $55,000 to Biden, according to Open Secrets. During the 2016 election cycle, Congressman John Carney, a “longtime friend of the Biden family” according to Delaware Online, hosted an event at Young Conaway, which then Vice President Joe Biden attended, according to emails purportedly from the Hunter Biden laptop. Carney, who won his gubernatorial race, later nominated McCormick to her judicial position in 2021 on the Delaware Chancery Court.
Biden’s son, Hunter, claimed in a 2018 email that he was connected to “every judge on the chancery court.” (McCormick was appointed three years later.) McCormick’s ruling comes on the heels of a broader effort by the Biden administration to target Musk and other conservatives using lawfare.
Under Biden’s politically weaponized Department of Justice, Musk has been threatened with legal action for simply creating a petition that offered a few lucky winners $1 million if they signed a petition pledging to support the First and Second Amendments and $100 or less to those who successfully encouraged others to sign the petition. In addition, Biden’s FCC has waged a war on Musk and SpaceX’s Starlink, with devastating consequences for those caught in the wake of Hurricane Helene.
It’s no coincidence that Musk, one of the most high-profile business figures with a dissenting political voice, has found himself on the receiving end of so much government pushback.
Brianna Lyman is an elections correspondent at The Federalist. Brianna graduated from Fordham University with a degree in International Political Economy. Her work has been featured on Newsmax, Fox News, Fox Business and RealClearPolitics. Follow Brianna on X: @briannalyman2
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