Elon Musk: Always A Douche

[Valmy]

[Redacted]
Please don't post personal information about other users in a publicly accessible forum if they haven't shared that information first - Jacob

[Syt]

https://www.reuters.com/legal/elon-musk-sues-wachtell-law-firm-recoup-fees-twitter-buyout-2023-07-07/

Elon Musk sues Wachtell law firm to recoup fees from Twitter buyout

July 7 (Reuters) - Elon Musk has sued the elite law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz to recover most of a $90 million fee it received from Twitter for defeating his bid to walk away from his $44 billion buyout of the social media company.

The complaint by Musk's X Corp, which owns Twitter, was filed on Wednesday in the California Superior Court in San Francisco.

Musk accused Wachtell of exploiting Twitter by accepting, in the final days before the Oct. 27, 2022, buyout closed, huge "success" fees doled out by departing Twitter executives who were grateful that Musk would be forced to close.

The world's richest person, who also runs Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) and SpaceX, called the $90 million payout "unconscionable," given that Wachtell had billed less than one-third that sum for its few months of work on the Delaware lawsuit.

"Wachtell arranged to effectively line its pockets with funds from the company cash register while the keys were being handed over" to Musk, the complaint said.

Musk wants to recoup "excess" fees that Wachtell charged under an agreement signed on the day of closing by one of its partners and Twitter's chief legal officer Vijaya Gadde.

The complaint also quoted former Twitter director Martha Lane Fox who, upon learning how much lawyers would be paid, emailed general counsel Sean Edgett: "O My Freaking God."

Wachtell did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Gadde, Fox and Edgett are not parties to the lawsuit.

Twitter has been involved in a slew of actual or threatened litigation since Musk's buyout.

These include many lawsuits by landlords, vendors and consultants accusing Musk of stiffing them on bills, and a threatened lawsuit by Twitter against Mark Zuckerberg's Meta Platforms (META.O) over the latter's new Threads app.

Wachtell is no stranger to lawsuits by billionaires over buyouts, having spent years litigating with Carl Icahn over his 2012 hostile takeover of CVR Energy (CVI.N).

In 2018, a judge dismissed a malpractice claim by Icahn, who found himself on the hook to pay banks that helped defend CVR against the takeover higher fees than if the merger failed.

The case is X Corp v Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, California Superior Court, County of San Francisco, No. CGC-23-607461.

[Admiral Yi]

Jesus Christ Elon

[crazy canuck]

Jesus Christ Elon

Rumour is that is the way Twitter employees must now address him.

[OttoVonBismarck]

By the way that law firm has been sued by another famous billionaire investor mad they bested him--Carl Icahn. After many years of litigation Carl didn't get a dime. I suspect they aren't too worried about litigation.

[grumbler]

Jesus Christ Elon

Rumour is that is the way Twitter employees must now address him.

  Low blow.




Well done! 

[grumbler]

By the way that law firm has been sued by another famous billionaire investor mad they bested him--Carl Icahn. After many years of litigation Carl didn't get a dime. I suspect they aren't too worried about litigation.

They must have a good lawyer.

[Barrister]

OK, so I don't think anyone can accuse me of being a Musk fanboi.

And I'm definitely not saying Musk/Twitter is going to win.

But I can see a certain merit to the lawsuit.    I mean it's one thing to bill with a "heavy pen", where you're quite liberal with what time you bill (and a NY white shoe firm like Wachtell has to bill at an astronomical rate).  But you can't necessarily just hand out an arbitrary bill with a "success fee".

Now that being said it all depends on the retainer letter, and I'd like to think that a firm like Wachtell would have covered themselves in that respect.  But I'm not 100% sure of that.

[crazy canuck]

OK, so I don't think anyone can accuse me of being a Musk fanboi.

And I'm definitely not saying Musk/Twitter is going to win.

But I can see a certain merit to the lawsuit.    I mean it's one thing to bill with a "heavy pen", where you're quite liberal with what time you bill (and a NY white shoe firm like Wachtell has to bill at an astronomical rate).  But you can't necessarily just hand out an arbitrary bill with a "success fee".

Now that being said it all depends on the retainer letter, and I'd like to think that a firm like Wachtell would have covered themselves in that respect.  But I'm not 100% sure of that.

Premiums for success are pretty much a standard form term in retainer agreements these days for any kind of commercial litigation. I'd be surprised if this law firm didn't have it in their retainer agreement.

It's a joke of a lawsuit, because Elon is mixing up the identity of who the proper plaintive is. If the people who benefitted from forcing Elon musk to buy the shares, we're worried about the terms of the retainer agreement then they would have a valid complaint.

But even then the bill wouldn't be settled through litigation. It would be settled through court registrars hearing.

Mask essentially suing, because the law firm did too good of a job for their then clients.

[Sheilbh]

Also it just feels incredibly difficult to argue that the board of a multi billion company able to afford Wachtell were somehow bamboozled by them into overpaying. They're a sophisticated commercial party - I'd expect any court to give this pretty short shrift unless there's, say, fraud.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I don't know any of the legalese involved, I defaulted to assuming Musk's suit was without merit based on:

1. He apparently has decided meritless lawsuits are a major recreational hobby the last year
2. This firm is so prestigious and powerful I was very skeptical they didn't have their bases covered
3. I assume getting a mosquito to give back the blood it has sucked is easier than getting a white shoe law firm to disgorge itself of its fees.

[Syt]

[Tamas]

Musk was not the best hill for Berkut to die on.

[HVC]

Musk was not the best hill for Berkut to die on.

Threads not the same without someone championing Elmo


As for the dick measuring contest, Zucks  been with his wife for 20 years, and musk can't hold onto a woman. Make of that what you will

[HVC]

Also, the plane tracking guy joined threads. So that's gotta annoy musk too.