Something tells me that Elon Musk will return to Chancery Court.
Of late, the new owner of Twitter has been doing a better job of making headlines than money after Chancellor Kathaleen Mc Cormick ruled that the Tesla co-founder had to live up to a deal to buy the troubled social media site.
Chancery Daily, a rather scholarly newsletter that focuses on the intricacies of the business court, covered the case, which ended without a trial. Chancery Daily ramped up its presence with Twitter posts, artwork and a newsletter site. You can even buy merchandise with a Musk theme.
As Musk took over Twitter and even carried a bathroom sink into its headquarters to make some sort of point, one might have thought that Chancery Daily would move back to deciphering complex cases for the corporate law community.
That wasn’t to be. Musk was quick to show what some have dubbed as his “God King” tendencies by ending bans on white nationalists and Donald Trump, while banning other critics, journalists, and most recently, a site that tracks his corporate jet using publicly available information. He claimed the site endangered his family. Musk banned one journalist who asked him a question via Twitter for a story.
It is worth noting that Musk owns Twitter and can do what he wants in terms of running the site.
Along the way, he fired much of the staff of the San Francisco company and set up sleeping rooms at headquarters so remaining coders could work nonstop revamp its network.
Advertisers fled, although there are signs that some returned.
The craziest move in Musk’s chaotic reign came when he ran a poll on whether he should remain in charge of Twitter. The results came in with more than 55% saying he should step down. Tesla’s stock price, is down by more than half from its peak and that’s bound to produce more litigation.
But back to Delaware where Chancery Daily took note of actions filed by former executives over their compensation packages, including the negotiated “golden parachute” payments. That case could end up in Chancery, with Musk perhaps betting that prolonged litigation would financially exhaust the former execs. Chancery doesn’t play the long game, which is one big reason why many disputes in corporate America end up here.
At any rate, it’s “pass the popcorn” time as we wait to see whether the Twitter circus comes to town. – Doug Rainey, chief content officer.
