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ATM Shafiqul Khalid v. Elon R. Musk
COURT OF CHANCERY OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE KATHALEEN ST. JUDE MCCORMICK LEONARD L. WILLIAMS JUSTICE CENTER CHANCELLOR 500 N. KING STREET, SUITE 11400 WILMINGTON, DELAWARE 19801-3734
September 18, 2025
ATM Shafiqul Khalid Catherine A. Gaul 17446 NE 28th Street Randall J. Teti Redmond, WA 98052 ASHBY & GEDDES 500 Delaware Avenue, 8th Floor Wilmington, DE 19899
Re: ATM Shafiqul Khalid v. Elon R. Musk et al., C.A. No. 2024-0443-KSJM
Dear Mr. Khalid and Counsel:
This letter resolves Plaintiff’s August 8, 2025 motion titled “Rule 59(a) Motion
to Review Prior Opinion on Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss on New Ground.”1
Plaintiff requests review and reconsideration under Rule 59(a) on the ground
that Mr. Musk’s termination letter constitutes new evidence.2 Plaintiff’s reliance on
Rule 59(a) is misplaced. Plaintiff’s request appears to seek relief in connection with
the July 18, 2025 Memorandum Opinion resolving Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss.3
The Memorandum Opinion resolved a pleading-stage motion. Rule 59(a) governs
requests for new trials, not relief in connection with pleading-stage determinations.4
So Rule 59(a) does not apply.
C.A. No. 2024-0443-KSJM September 17, 2025 Page 2 of 2
In what is perhaps an overly generous application of the procedural leniency this court grants self-represented litigants, I am treating Plaintiff’s August 8, 2025 request as taking aim at my August 7, 2025 Letter Decision denying the first motion for reargument. Rule 59(a) does not apply to the August 7 decision either, so I will treat the new request as a second motion for reargument under Rule 59(f).
Plaintiff’s second motion for reargument fails on the merits. The court will grant a motion for reargument upon a showing that the court “has misapprehended a material fact or rule of law . . . such that the outcome of the decision would be affected.”5 A motion for reargument is “not a mechanism for litigants to relitigate claims already considered by the court, or to raise new arguments that they failed to present in a timely way.”6 Plaintiff has not identified any law or fact that I misapprehended. He largely re-raises arguments he previously made in his July 28, 2025 motion, arguments that I previously rejected. Plaintiff’s second motion for reargument is denied. The case is closed.
Sincerely,
/s/ Kathaleen St. Jude McCormick
Chancellor cc: All counsel of record (by File & ServeXpress) 5 Sunrise Ventures, LLC v. Rehoboth Canal Ventures, LLC, 2010 WL 975581, at *1
(Del. Ch. Mar. 4, 2010), aff’d, 7 A.3d 485 (Del. 2010) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). 6 Id. (quoting Am. Legacy Found. V. Lorillard Tobacco Co., 895 A.2d 874, 877 (Del.
Ch. 2005) (internal quotation marks omitted)).
Footnotes
[1] C.A. No. 2024-0443-KSJM, Docket (“Dkt.”) 42.
[2] Id. at 1–2.
[3] See Dkts. 35.
[4] See Ct. Ch. R. 59(a) (“A new trial may be granted to all or any of the parties, and on all or part of the issues for any of the reasons for which rehearings have heretofore been granted in suits in equity.”).