- Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman says he is moving his management company out of Delaware.
- It follows similar statements from companies like DropBox, Meta, and SpaceX.
- Some corporations are turning against Delaware, historically considered a business-friendly state.
Bill Ackman, the billionaire CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management, says he will move his management company out of Delaware to reincorporate in Nevada.
His announcement, which came in a post on X on Saturday morning, was in response to news that DropBox was making a similar move. “We are reincorporating our management company in Nevada for the same reason. Top law firms are recommending Nevada and Texas over Delaware,” Ackman said.
Pershing Square Capital Management did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
Other high-profile public companies have also announced their exit from Delaware, former President Joe Biden’s home state, over the last year as some corporations turn against the historically business-friendly state.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk spent much of 2024 encouraging companies incorporated in Delaware to leave after a judge repeatedly struck down his $55 billion Tesla compensation package, which a shareholder lawsuit argued was excessive. The decision prompted Musk to move SpaceX to Texas.
Much of the concern for these established public companies is a series of recent Delaware court rulings, including the one on Musk’s pay package, that further empower shareholders to challenge executive decisions.
Meta, which maintains a corporate structure that gives CEO Mark Zuckerberg near total control, said it was also considering leaving Delaware to reincorporate in Texas or another state, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.
Billionaire CEOs like Ackman, Zuckerberg, and Musk hope that courts in other states, such as Texas or Nevada, will be less permissive of lawsuits from shareholders and boards of directors.
