Law Schools

Writing The Book On Business: Elon Musk Has Had Enough Legal Troubles That This Law School Is Teaching A Class On Them

What makes me want to work with Tesla? I've been chronicling this guy's court run-ins since I was a 0L!

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Elon Musk

(by Heisenberg Media)

No one should be defined by their worst day. But after a pattern emerges, you begin to make a name for yourself. One such name that will go down in lawsuit history is Elon Musk. The Twitter debacle is just one suit of many bearing his name. But history won’t be the only carrier of his name anymore. Bluebooks will too.

Stephen Bainbridge, a corporate law professor at the University of California Los Angeles, has launched a class called the “Law of Elon Musk.” The course will follow the billionaire’s long history of corporate legal battles, including his ongoing battle with Twitter and a lawsuit over his complex CEO compensation package.

“As someone who manages an immense amount of other people’s money, Musk constantly faces the temptation to pursue his own interests and goals rather than focusing on the welfare of those who have entrusted him with their savings,” the course listing reads. “This course examines some of the ways in which law constrains (or fails to) Musk’s divergences from shareholder interests.”

Bainbridge has got a point. If you’re trying to teach about corporate takeovers or bullish behavior being protected by the business judgment rule, Elon is clearly your guy. And with a string of lawsuits longer than the mileage you’d get from a Tesla recharge, I’m sure the students will have a fun number of cases to annotate.

Bainbridge told the publication that Musk has a propensity for “generating ideas that produce enormous amounts of value but who would be a pain in the butt as a client because he often leaps before he looks.”

“Obviously I’ve never met the guy, but just observing him, he’s not a process guy. He’s also not a guy that you can control,” Bainbridge said, adding that “it’s clear that this is a guy who’s willing to push the edge of the legal envelope and take risks in terms of legalities that most business people wouldn’t.”

I, too, have spoken on Elon’s lack of process or control orientation, what with his self-disclosed Elden Ring load out. If I had any knowledge of the meta or… basic game mechanics for that matter and still chose to run this build, Batman himself could not have gotten this information out of me. I would have held that secret closer to my neck and ran quicker than a 36-year-old man who was asked why his cool “necklace” still had a PetSmart sticker on it. What I’m trying to say here is that Elon Musk is a walking hypo, and if my business law classes had this visible of a figure I could keep my attention on, I’d have probably gotten a better grade.

UCLA’s Law School Is Offering A class On Elon Musk And All Of His Lawsuits [Business Insider]

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Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s.  He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at cwilliams@abovethelaw.com and by tweet at @WritesForRent.

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