The former CEO of Parler, a Twitter alternative popular with conservatives, said he was against a potential deal with then-President Donald Trump.
Members of the Trump campaign and Parler executives met over the summer of 2020 about a potential deal that would make Parler the former president’s primary social media outlet in exchange for a 40% stake in the company, BuzzFeed News reported Friday. They also reportedly revisited the conversation again in November 2020 after President Biden won the election.
“I didn’t like the idea of working with Trump, because he might have bullied people inside the company to do what he wanted. But I was worried that if we didn’t sign the deal, he might have been vengeful and told his followers to leave Parler,” Parler CEO John Matze told Axios.
The meeting, which took place at Mar-a-Lago, was set up by Jeffrey Wernick, an early Parler investor and subsequent chief operating officer, Matze said, adding that it was a few hours long, but he’s unaware of whether the first offer came from Wernick or the Trump campaign.
They spoke to “several people about potential stakes in the company for producing certain things,” Wernick said.
Trump, who was suspended on nearly all social media platforms, “was never a part of the discussions,” said former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale, noting that they were “never that substantive,” rather it was “just one of many things the campaign was looking into to deal with the cancel culture of Silicon Valley.”
In the aftermath of the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol riot, a number of big tech platforms severed their ties with Parler, whom they accused of not doing enough to prevent the incitement of violence on the platform. Apple and Google also removed the app from their platforms, while Amazon Web Services stopped providing cloud services to Parler, in turn causing the website to go offline.
Matze’s employment with Parler was terminated Jan. 29, he previously said.
“On January 29, 2021, the Parler board controlled by Rebekah Mercer decided to immediately terminate my position as CEO of Parler. I did not participate in this decision,” he said. “I understand that those who now control the company have made some communications to employees and other third parties that have unfortunately created confusion and prompted me to make this public statement.”
