Parler, the pro-Donald Trump social media site that has served as something of an all-you-can-eat buffet for brain worms in recent years, is being sued by its own co-founder and ex-CEO.
After the January 6 riots at the Capitol, which was partly organized on Parler’s site fraught with violent death threats, Amazon Web Services has started Parler from its servers and Apple and Google kicked it out of their respective app stores. The site is now back despite not convincing any of those other companies to let it return, but CEO John Matze did not return for the second leg of the journey. He was forced into some sort of internal feud with GOP mega donor Rebekah Mercer, a major investor now reportedly personal bankrolls the site, and the far-right former NRATV pundit and co-investor Dan Bongino, whose role appears to be at least in part to urge his millions of Facebook followers to migrate to a site where he has a personal financial interest in has.
The departure did not go well, with Bongino accuses Matze of trying to sell the site’s original mission as a utopia of free speech where almost anything is legal – just what the company in difficulty in the first place – and Matze media tell Mercer had turned a blind eye to address the deluge of QAnon conspiracy theorists, neo-Nazis, fascists, racists and other obnoxious fanatics who took over the site. Now, Matze claims his 40 percent stake in the company was stolen in a “bizarre and arrogant theft … epitomized by oppression, fraud and malice”, according to the Las Vegas Sun
Matzo wrote in court documents alleges breach of contract and slander alleging that Parler was “hijacked to further the personal political interests and benefits of the defendants rather than serve as the platform for free speech as originally conceived.” Both Mercer and Bongino are named as defendants in the lawsuit, alongside chief operating officer Jeffrey Wernick and Parler’s new interim CEO, Tea Party activist. Mark Meckler
Matze wrote in the suit that the company was initially founded with the help of a holding company designed to cover up Mercer’s involvement, and argued over financial matters (in his story, Mercer characterized her 60 percent stake as a loan that should be repaid). He added that Mercer seemed to lose interest in the site until about November 2020 – it’s not clear exactly when, but this could have been sometime when Talk signups were on the rise amid Trump’s claims that the election had been stolen – and that she subsequently refused to compromise on proposals for tougher moderation in the wake of the riots. According to NPR
“Matze’s proposal was met with deadly silence, which he considered a rejection of his proposal,” the lawsuit said.
Matze says in the suit that Mercer has attracted allies, including Wernick, to “ arm him out of the company. ”
Wernick would have threatened Matze with an “avalanche of legal claims and expenses if he dared to defy Mercer,” the lawsuit said.
Wernick said, according to the lawsuit against Matze, that he should not consult his own attorney and threatened that “he would be ruined” if he did.
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Matze plays himself like he’s some kind of innocent patsy in the suit. Court documents allege that when he met his eventual replacement, Meckler, it became clear to Matze that Meckler’s efforts were not to grow Parler as a platform for free speech, but to redirect it to what Meckler referred to as the ‘dot of the conservative spear “. for a brand of conservatism that aligns with Mercer’s preferences.” Considering that Parler is clear ideological pandering, that it reportedly tried to trick Trump into registering an account promises of an equity stake in the summer of 2020, and Matze bragged about that banning liberal “trolls” Sitewide, it’s hard to make the claim that Matze had no idea his site was going to be used to take the right-wing agenda seriously.
Finally, in the lawsuit, Matze alleges that Parler’s management smeared him with suggestions of misconduct and violation of his obligations as a manager, when in reality the site went back online using the technical game plan he had developed, but very badly. (Since Meckler “lacked the technical know-how to actually run such a social media platform – and his real role was to simply push a political agenda – it lacked implementation,” Matze added.) He also writes that as part of the Shakedown, Mercer’s folks determined that the “ fair market value ” of his 40 percent stake is a meager three dollars.
Maybe on that, we can agree: Parler is worth about $ 7.50, give or take a few dollars, depending on whether it helps provoke another failed uprising.
However, Matze says his share of the internet hellhole is actually worth millions, and that in internal discussions he and Mercer had valued the site at $ 1 billion or more.
The former CEO “looks forward to bringing his claims to court and being justified,” Matze’s attorney James Pisanelli told the Sun in a statement.