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

Elon Musk has sued the elite law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz to recover most of a $90 million fee it received from Twitter. To learn more, read the full story on The Hindu.

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. 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.

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"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.