DOVER, Del. (AP) — A lawyer for billionaire Elon Musk had barely begun speaking during a recent hearing when the Delaware judge presiding over Twitter’s lawsuit against Musk abruptly cut her off.
“Skip the rhetoric and go to the meat,” Chancellor Kathaleen St. Jude McCormick said bluntly.
The judge’s tone that day illuminates the no-nonsense approach she brings as the first woman to lead Delaware’s 230-year-old Court of Chancery. The court is America’s go-to venue for high-stakes disputes involving some of the world’s biggest companies, many of which call Delaware their legal home.
This court fight between the world’s richest man and the influential social platform could easily have become a circus, particularly given Musk’s penchant for chaos. That hasn’t happened largely thanks to McCormick, who’s been a judge for only four years. She has set firm deadlines, reined in over-the-top attorney requests and kept the case moving briskly.
Musk has been battling Twitter since he announced in July that he wanted to scuttle an agreement to acquire the social media giant for $44 billion. Twitter sued Musk, seeking a court order of “specific performance” directing him to consummate the deal.