Elon Musk and the Absolutist Revival
In defiance of a recent Delaware Chancery Court ruling that voided his $56 billion compensation agreement with Tesla, Elon Musk wants to reincorporate the company in a friendlier jurisdiction. And he's far from the only CEO who feels fully entitled to reject any legal constraints on his power.
NEW YORK – Rulers have always found it hard to accept limits on their power. When the French parliament disputed Louis XIV’s edicts in 1655, the king of France and Navarre is said to have responded: “L’état, c’est moi” (“I am the state”). The ensuing age of absolutism in France ended only with the French Revolution in 1789.