A U.S. District Judge in Texas has recused himself from a lawsuit filed by Elon Musk’s X days after NPR drew scrutiny to the judge’s investment in Tesla and questions about Musk using the court to engage in “forum-shopping.”
But O’Connor, according to his most recent publicly available financial disclosure, also invests in Unilever, one of the defendants in Musk’s suit against a coalition of brands. The judge reported receiving a dividend from the company in 2022 of $15,000 or less.
In O’Connor’s two-sentence order stepping aside from the Musk case, he did not offer an explanation.
Jesus, it took a news outlet exposing his conflicts of interest to make the judge recuse himself? The judiciary is in real need of ethics reform. If you’re a judge who is going to be presiding over cases between corporations you shouldn’t be owning any individual stocks to begin with, WTF are these people doing.