How Bill Savitt Beat Elon Musk — Twice
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- Bill Savitt of Wachtell, Lipton has now prevailed against Elon Musk in two blockbuster cases: representing Twitter when Musk tried to back out of acquiring it, and representing OpenAI and Sam Altman in Musk v. Altman.
- The Musk v. Altman jury verdict is now under appeal by Musk, and Savitt declined to discuss specifics of the case in the interview — though his track record puts him in position to be a repeat Musk-opposing counsel.
- Savitt's broader résumé includes representing Coinbase against the SEC, KKR in Corwin v. KKR Financial, and Sotheby's in defending against a poison pill; legal publisher Lawdragon wrote in 2015 that "if you read the Wall Street Journal, you might as well be looking at Bill Savitt's daily calendar."
- Savitt's cross-examination of Musk in Musk v. Altman was notably soft-spoken: his questions mostly asked Musk to restate things he'd said earlier in his own direct testimony, and Musk's inability to remember his own statements "went a long way toward establishing Musk as an unreliable narrator from the jump."
- Savitt prepared for the trial in an Oakland trial office a few blocks from the courthouse, playing a Fender Telecaster with P-90 pickups through a Cube amplifier between document review.
- Savitt's stated litigation principles include exhaustive document preparation, never taking the bait from a combative witness, pursuing unexpected "rabbits" mid-cross-examination, and presenting evidence in chronological order.
- Savitt says he has not taken on any new cases opposing Musk or his enterprises since the trial ended, though inquiries have come in and Musk "embroils himself in" enough litigation to keep any opposing counsel busy.
- Musk himself complained at trial that Savitt's questions were "designed to trick me" and "mostly... unfair," to which Savitt replied, "I am trying to put the questions as fairly as I can."
Why it matters: Savitt has now twice bested the world's richest person in high-stakes courtroom fights, using a method that front-loads evidence over theatrics: ask simple questions, let the witness contradict himself, present facts in chronological order. With Musk appealing the OpenAI verdict and continuing to litigate aggressively, the playbook Savitt deployed in both cases is now public — and it has already produced jury wins against a witness most lawyers dread.
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