Attorneys argue Ex-Parler CEO was bullied out of company in Las Vegas trial

An attorney for a co-founder of the conservative social media app Parler said in court Monday his client was wrongly forced out of his role as leader of the company he started in Henderson.

Parler’s former Chief Executive Officer John Matze is suing conservative political donor and Parler financing partner Rebekah Mercer, her company NDM, and others, including radio host and former co-deputy director of the FBI Dan Bongino, over Matze’s ouster from Parler in 2021. The defendants in the suit have denied the accusations in the case.

The app was subsequently linked to the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, causing the company serious distress. A civil trial stemming from Matze’s suit opened Monday in the District Court courtroom of Judge Maria Gall.

Parler was a ‘scapegoat’ after Jan. 6 riot, attorney argues

During opening statements, Matze’s attorney, Todd Bice, said Mercer and others plotted to get Matze out of his leadership role at Parler, ultimately causing Matze to lose his job and a 40 percent interest in the company.

“The evidence is going to show you that they engaged in a coordinated campaign to intimidate and bully Mr. Matze out of a company that he had founded, and that he had built into what became the number one app on the Apple store,” Bice said.

Bice said at one point the libertarian-minded, free-speech alternative to Twitter had more than 15 million users. Bice said the app’s millions of users amounted to “rarefied air” when it comes to realizing success from a startup social media app.

This success, in turn, led to interest in Parler from some of the political right’s most influential names.

Court proceedings Monday revealed Fox was at one point considering buying Parler. Vice President JD Vance was listed as a manager at Parler and was appointed to the position by NDM, but he is not a party to the lawsuit.

Bongino agreed to promote the app in exchange for a small minority interest in the company, according to court proceedings.

Bice, meanwhile, told jurors that the volume of users on Parler translated into data on active voters that could be worth a lot of money.

“It’s data, and it’s valuable data, particularly if you play in politics,” Bice said.

Bice presented texts in court Monday showing Vance was involved in discussions on who might serve as a new chief executive officer for Parler. Bice also said Vance was at one point talking about Wall Street investor Peter Thiel as a possible CEO. Bice presented a text from Mercer in court saying “Need to get rid of John ASAP.”

Bice claimed that those who wanted Matze out of his leadership role essentially rewrote an operating agreement as part of a corporate restructuring aimed at raising money. Then, the attacks at the Capitol happened on Jan. 6, 2021, and “the big tech companies all look to blame somebody but themselves,” Bice said.

“Facebook, Twitter, Amazon all wanted to find a scapegoat, and they found one: The upstart competitor Parler,” Bice said. “And they all turned on it.”

He said the accusations against Parler playing a role in the insurrection were false.

“In fact, it was later determined Parler had nothing to do with that,” Bice said. “Parler had, in fact, been cooperating with the FBI and alerting them in advance of January 6 of some of the nonsense that was going on online, being talked about online.”

‘Gross incompetence’ led to ouster, defense says

Mercer’s attorney, Chad Clement, said Matze was dismissed for good reason. The CEO, he said, “engaged in improper and intentional conduct to seriously harm Parler, the very company he helped create.”

Clement said the case is a contract case and that Matze’s ouster was carried out in accordance with the operating agreement of the business. He said Matze did not invest any of his own money in the business and Mercer’s company was the financier.

“It is a business contract that Mr. Matze read, understood, signed and agreed to…deal is a deal, contract is a contract,” Clement said.

He said Matze was regularly interviewed on news shows including Fox News as Parler was gaining momentum as a company, and “that attention, the evidence will show, ended up going to his head.”

Clement said Matze was pushing for more control of the company and threatened to destroy it in September 2020.

“The insurrection at the Capitol put Parler in a national spot, and not in a good way,” Clement said. “Media outlets were pointing at Parler, asking whether, asking whether the platform had been used to organize the violence.”

On the same day as the insurrection, Matze talked about being bought out. The day after the insurrection, Matze gave remarks on a New York Times podcast that were devastating to the company, Clement said.

Clement said Matze was quoted as saying he didn’t feel responsible for what happened at the insurrection. Matze had been warned about the dangers of doing the interview, Clement said, and Apple later used the interview in its decision to remove Parler from the App Store.

“The very words of Parler’s own CEO were cited as the reason for deplatforming the company,” Clement said.

Clement said Matze also used Parler money to pay for his own personal attorneys and in February 2021 made a public statement saying he was fired for planning to ban Neo-Nazi groups.

“You were in fact fired for gross incompetence,” managers of the company wrote in a misconduct notification letter to Matze displayed in court Monday.

Contact Glenn Puit at gpuit@reviewjournal.com.