Fortune Magazine Contrasts Shawe and Musk – And Shouts Out TransPerfect for Bringing Much-Needed Reforms to Chancery
Dear Friends,
Please see this Fortune article regarding TransPerfect’s aim to fix what’s clearly broken in Chancery Court. The article speaks for itself — but please let me know what you think. Your feedback is always appreciated.
Musk wanted to flee Delaware. This CEO wants to fix it
By Diane Brady
Executive Editorial Director
April 22, 2026, 5:55 AM ET
Despite anti-Delaware campaigns, the state still dominates the business landscape.
Good morning. What’s next for Delaware, home to 1 million people and about 2.2 million businesses? Remember when Elon Musk told peers to flee America’s corporate capital, moving Tesla and SpaceX to Texas after a court tried to overturn his trillion-dollar pay package? Several companies heeded his call—TripAdvisor, Roblox, Dropbox, Affirm, Coinbase, Andreessen Horowitz, even Trump Media & Technology Group—sparking talk of “DExit.”
But Delaware is hard to quit. While states like Nevada, Texas, and Wyoming are becoming more popular places to incorporate, Delaware is still home to more than two-thirds of Fortune 500 companies and most recent IPOs. Its Supreme Court recently upheld Senate Bill 21, a 2025 overhaul dubbed the “billionaires’ bill” as it limits shareholder suits. And the spirit of Musk still looms large: his team recently accused a Delaware judge of bias over her “heart” on a LinkedIn post, so she used Scrabble tiles to reassign some cases to colleagues, one of whom ruled this month that Tesla could move three shareholder suits to Texas. Barring some appeals, Musk’s days in Delaware may finally be over.
But one CEO is still invested in the future of the state despite moving his company elsewhere.
TransPerfect CEO Phil Shawe understands Delaware courts like few others. In 2014, his co-founder and former fiancé petitioned the court to seize control of the profitable translation management company, forcing Shawe to buy her stake at auction in 2018, a process that he says was opaque, unfair and cost $250 million in legal fees. Shaw moved TransPerfect to Nevada, growing revenues from $600 million then to $1.3 billion today.
Unlike Musk, Shawe stuck around, financing a $2 million anti-Delaware ad campaign during Musk’s battles, helping elect Gov. Matt Meyer in 2024, and lobbying for changes such as mandatory audio in the courtroom, stricter conflict-of-interest rules, and financial disclosure requirements for judges.
“I happen to have a lot of hard-earned knowledge that not a lot of people have, and thankfully, the means to do something with it,” says Shawe. He acknowledges Delaware’s continued popularity and argues he isn’t trying to kill it. “What we’ve been trying to do for the past couple years is not tell people to leave Delaware but actually help Delaware reform its courts.”
Despite anti-Delaware campaigns, the state still dominates the business landscape.GETTY IMAGES
Captain A. Judson Bennett was a life- long resident of Lewes, DE. He served the maritime industry for 33 years, primarily as a Delaware River Pilot, guiding large ships to the Port of Philadelphia. Captain Bennett has been an active and consistent entrepreneur over the years.
He was elected as a Lewes City Councilman for 6 years. Afterwards he ran for the Sussex County Council as a Republican, and with 20 thousand people voting, lost Delaware’s closest election by 3 votes to an 8 year incumbent. Abandoning his personal political ambitions, he became the Republican District leader, advocating conservative values. Captain Bennett became a lobbyist in the state legislature advocating among many ideas, financial literacy concepts in education. He managed several political campaigns, including one for Governor of Delaware and one for the US Senate against VP Joe Biden. He is now the owner, operator, and writer for the Coastal Network which communicates regularly with over 6000 people throughout the State of Delaware.
Captain Bennett is a graduate of St. Andrew’s School in Middletown, DE (where the movie “The Dead Poet’s Society was filmed) and also graduated “Magna Cum Laude” from the University of Delaware with a BA in Criminal Justice and an MA in Liberal Studies.
He is now a Widower, living in West Palm Beach, Florida. Captain Bennett has one son, three grandchildren, and one great grand-daughter, all who live in Richmond, Virginia.
