Billionaire Bill Ackman told a tall tale about his family company to announce that he will not settle a frivolous harassment case against his company.
Bill Ackman made a post of several thousand words on The post, which reads almost like a novel, went viral as many high-profile personalities like Elon Musk, Chamath Palihapitiya, Donald Trump Jr. reacted to his stories and supported Ackman’s stance to fight it. Long story short: At the center of this lawsuit is his private family office, TABLE, which was set up 15 years ago to handle his personal finances. While he was busy with his other companies, the company grew bigger and the expenses also increased. Late last year, he brought his nephew, a Harvard graduate, to see the company. The nephew talked to the employees and suggested firing one-third of the staff, including the president. The company’s in-house counsel and one of its highest-paid employees, whom Ackman called ‘Rhonda’ for ease of understanding, asked for two years’ leave and then sent a threatening letter from a Silicon Valley lawyer, alleging an unsafe workplace, harassment and gender discrimination by the nephew. Ackman said he spoke to his nephew and found that those comments were taken out of context and that Rhonda herself was the head of workplace compliance. According to Ackman, Rhonda and her husband, who works at a major Silicon Valley VC firm, calculated that they would get a large sum of money from Ackman because Rhonda knew all the pressure situations Ackman was facing – their daughter’s brain hemorrhage on February 5, their upcoming IPO, etc. Ackman said he would not compromise and would instead fight. “Agreed. This BS has gone too far,” replied Elon Musk. Donald Trump Jr. also said he agreed with Ackman’s decision and that it had to be stopped. Chamath Palihapitiya said he learned the hard way after first settling frivolous claims. “I’ve dealt with a bunch of this crap in the past. This is the “tax” I talked about on the pod this week. It was easy to pay it for a while because it was relatively small dollars each time (a few million here or there) but then the system realized I was a mark and wouldn’t stop. Then they try to come after by the tens or hundreds. Eventually I got fed up with it and drew a hard line in the sand with a bunch of people who sued me for benefits they weren’t entitled to. they lost. I won. I will never compromise again. Just fight,” he wrote. Most social media users enjoyed reading about how a billionaire is throwing his “nepo-nephew” under the bus and exposing the employee who filed a lawsuit against him.