Gibson Dunn & Crutcher has hired Wachtell Lipton co-leader William Savitt, a renowned corporate trial lawyer known for taking on Elon Musk, alongside a team of litigators, in the latest instance of high-profile exits from the storied Wall Street firm.
Savitt has joined Gibson Dunn in New York alongside partners Sarah Eddy, Randall Jackson, Ryan McLeod, Anitha Reddy and Bradley Wilson. Savitt, who co-chaired Wachtell’s executive committee and litigation department, will now co-chair Gibson Dunn’s litigation practice group.
“This is a rare and powerful combination,” said Barbara Becker, chair and managing partner of Gibson Dunn. “It brings together the nation’s foremost corporate governance, M&A and high-stakes trial litigation team with the deepest trial, appellate and regulatory platform in the legal profession. There is no other pairing in the market that offers clients more talent, deeper experience or a better track record.”
The departures are a blow for Wachtell, which has seen more than half a dozen senior defections to rivals since the beginning of last year, including the firm’s restructuring and finance head, Joshua Feltman, leaving for Kirkland & Ellis in April. Latham & Watkins has also lured away several partners, including top dealmaker Zach Podolsky last year.
Wachtell is one of the few Big Law firms to remain wedded to a traditional seniority-based lockstep compensation system and used to be considered virtually immune to poaching from rivals thanks to its very high profitability and elite reputation. That status has come under pressure recently, however, as firms with more flexible pay structures have picked off top talent.
Savitt’s 26 years at Wachtell included two major wins over Musk. In 2022, he helped Twitter compel Musk to complete his $44bn acquisition of the social media platform, and in May this year he convinced a jury in California to reject Musk’s suit against OpenAI challenging the company’s shift to a for-profit business.
He is also known as an expert in the corporate law of Delaware, having argued dozens of appeals in the Delaware Supreme Court and the federal circuits.
Musk is a high-profile client of Gibson Dunn, which guided SpaceX on its listing in June, the biggest IPO on record. The firm has become a major force in corporate deals work, having long been known for its strength in litigation.
In April, it added a four-partner group of prominent appellate lawyers from Sullivan & Cromwell in Washington led by former acting solicitor general Jeffrey Wall, having hired former Trump impeachment lawyer Barry Berke and his team from legacy Kramer Levin in 2024.
Wachtell did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson told the Financial Times the firm was “performing at its highest level across every metric”, adding it was “having a record year, continues at the top of all the league tables and is as strong as it has ever been”.
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