Former Parler CEO says he was told his shares were only worth $ 3

Speaking, the pro-Donald Trump social media site that has served as a sort of all-you-can-eat brainworm buffet in recent years, is continued by its own co-founder and former CEO.

Following the January 6 riots at the Capitol, which were partially staged at Parler’s site charged with violent death threats, Amazon Web Services started Parler from its servers and Apple and Google launched in their respective app stores. The site is now back although it failed to convince any of these other companies to let it return, but CEO John Matze did not return for the second leg of the journey. He was kicked out in some sort of internal feud with GOP mega-donor Rebekah Mercer, a major investor who is now believed to be finance personally the site, and former far-right NRATV expert and co-investor Dan Bongino, whose role seems at least in part to be to entice his millions of Facebook followers to migrate to a site in which he has a financial interest staff.

The start did not go well, with Bongino accuse Matze trying to sell the site’s original mission as a free speech utopia where almost everything legal goes – exactly what has company in difficulty in the first place – and Matze tell the media Mercer had turned a blind eye to the deluge of QAnon conspiracy theorists, neo-Nazis, fascists, racists and other obnoxious fanatics taking over the site. Now Matze claims his 40% stake in the company was stolen as part of an “extravagant and arrogant theft … embodied in oppression, fraud and malice”, by the Las Vegas Sun.

Unleavened written in court documents alleging breach of contract and defamation that Parler was “hijacked to promote the personal political interests and personal benefits of the defendants rather than to serve as a platform for free expression as it was originally conceived”. Mercer and Bongino are both named as defendants in the lawsuit, alongside chief executive Jeffrey Wernick and the new acting CEO of Tea Party activist Parler. Mark Meckler.

Matze wrote in the costume that the company was originally founded using a holding company designed to hide Mercer’s involvement and argued over finances (in his story, Mercer characterized his 60% stake as a loan that should be paid back ). He added that Mercer seemed to lose interest in the site until around November 2020 – it’s unclear exactly when, but it would have happened at some point. Talk signups surged amid Trump’s claims, the election was stolen – and which she subsequently refused to compromise on tougher moderation proposals following the riots. By NPR:

“Matze’s proposal was met with dead silence, which he took for a rejection of his proposal,” according to the trial.

Matze says in the lawsuit that Mercer called on allies, including Wernick, to “force him out of the company.”

Wernick allegedly threatened Matze with an “avalanche of claims and legal fees if he dared to challenge Mercer,” the lawsuit says.

Wernick, according to the lawsuit, told Matze not to consult his own lawyer and threatened that “he would be broke” if he did.

Matze plays himself out to be some kind of innocent pigeon in the costume. Court documents claim that after meeting his possible replacement, Meckler, it “became apparent to Matze that Meckler’s efforts were not to develop Speaking as a platform for free expression, but rather to redirect him to what Meckler called the “tip of the conservative spear” for a mark of conservatism in line with Mercer’s preferences. “Considering the obviousness of Speaking ideological pandering, that he would have sought to induce Trump to create an account with equity participation promises in the summer of 2020, and that Matze boasted ban liberal “trolls” Across the site, it’s hard to take account of the claim that Matze had no idea that his site would be used to seriously advance the right-wing agenda.

Finally, Matze claims in the lawsuit that Parler’s management made suggestions to him of misconduct and breaches of his obligations as a a manager, when in reality the site continued to get back online using the technical game plan he had developed, but very poorly. (As Meckler “did not have the technical know-how to actually run such a social media platform – and his real role was simply to promote a political agenda – the implementation was beyond its shortcomings” Matze added.) He also writes that as part of the shakedown, the folks at Mercer determined that the “fair market value” of his 40 percent stake was a Three dollars.

Maybe about it, we can agree: Talking is worth around $ 7.50, give or take a few dollars depending on whether it helps successfully spark another failed insurgency.

Matze, however, says his stake in internet hell is actually worth millions, and that in internal discussions he and Mercer valued the site at $ 1 billion or more.

The former CEO “looks forward to bringing his claims to court and being vindicated,” Matze’s attorney, James Pisanelli, told The Sun in a statement.