Musk Ruling Takes Aim at Lawyer Windfalls in Moonshot Pay Cases

The judge who killed Elon Musk’s $56 billion compensation deal handed his courtroom foes a fraction of the legal fees they sought for their success, underscoring a broader reckoning with “eye-popping” attorney paydays.

Facing a torrent of vitriol from the world’s richest man and his fans, the chief judge of Delaware’s elite business court rejected a request for billions, calling it a “bold ask” in a case about excessive pay. She slashed the fee amount to $345 million by an unusual method: pegging it to the package’s $2.3 billion value when it was awarded, in 2018, rather than when she ...