Former Parler CEO John Matze has sued the company and its leadership for millions of dollars, claiming his 40% stake in the social media platform was stolen and that he was subject to threats and bullying.
The lawsuit, filed in Nevada, claims that Matze’s 40% ownership in Parler was taken away from him for only $3 in compensation, which the suit says is an “outlandish and arrogant theft.”
The suit alleges that Matze is entitled to “punitive damages trebling (at a minimum) the millions that he is owed in compensatory damages.”
Matze’s suit particularly mentions his disagreements with billionaire Rebekah Mercer, a prominent conservative donor and founding investor of Parler, regarding content moderation. The suit claims his push for groups peddling conspiracy theories and violent content, such as QAnon and neo-Nazis, to be censored was resisted by Mercer and others on the leadership team.
Matze said this led to the site being “hijacked” by Mercer and others who disagreed with him in order to advance “personal political interests” and make the website a place for conservatives rather than the free expression platform Matze wanted it to be. Matze said in February that he’d been fired.
Parler was founded in 2018 and billed itself as a platform that protects free speech. It has been popular with conservatives and jumped to the most downloaded app on Apple in November after the presidential election.
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A handful of Big Tech companies, including Amazon, Apple, and Google, moved to take down Parler in early January, citing its role in facilitating the Capitol attack on Jan. 6. Parler announced in February that its website had resumed operations on a new platform but that its phone app is not available on iPhone or Android devices yet.
