Much has been written regarding Elon Musk’s criticism of the State of Delaware and the decisions of its courts about him and his many successful business enterprises–and by extension the large number of other businesses impacted by Delaware law. In a broader sense, Musk’s criticism, and that of others, has generated discussion about the perennial question of: whether Delaware’s prominence in the corporate law world is at risk. See, e.g., the scholarship of this blog’s favorite corporate law scholar, Professor Stephen Bainbridge, on whether the impact of Musk and others will have an effect on Delaware as the leading choice for formation of corporations and other business entities (“DExit”). Relatedly, there has been an enormous amount of commentary on recent changes to the Delaware General Corporation Law that arose out of a protest of sorts to recent decisions by the Delaware Court of Chancery. See, e.g, one of many articles on those recent changes to Delaware corporate statutes.
Though I have published more than a thousand articles in various publications, which includes the commentaries and highlights about Delaware law on these pages over the last several decades, if I made my living in the halls of academia instead of needing to serve paying clients, I could devote more time to a detailed analysis of the titular topic.
Although some of my articles have been cited by the Delaware Supreme Court, the Delaware Court of Chancery, and the Delaware Superior Court, my purpose in this short blog post is simply to raise the question for discussion about the titular topic. It may be difficult or impossible to measure what impact, if any, on the decisions of Delaware Courts, and Delaware public policy in general, the criticism of Elon Musk, with over 200 million followers on X, formerly Twitter, will have on a long-term basis, even if only in a nuanced manner.
By comparison, many articles have been written, quite a while ago, about the “Greenhouse Effect” on decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court based on criticism of the High Court by a New York Times reporter of that name. But Elon Musk, one of the most influential and productive geniuses of our time, and maybe the most impactful person in history–from building rockets in a quest to colonize Mars, to self-driving cars, and autonomous robots, to advances in artificial intelligence, and brain implants–likely has an effect far greater than a New York Times reporter. Food for thought.