A former SandboxAQ government filed a wrongful termination swimsuit final month full of such scandalous allegations towards the corporate’s famed CEO, Jack Hidary, that the plaintiff himself redacted essentially the most salacious particulars.
On Friday, the corporate’s legal professionals filed a blistering response, calling the previous worker a “serial liar” and stating his lawsuit “asserts false claims for improper and extortionate functions.”
Even the seen parts of the lawsuit — which TechCrunch has obtained — include eyebrow-raising allegations, ought to a court docket discover them legitimate. (A copy of the lawsuit is available here.)
The case gives a uncommon inside take a look at how worker lawsuits can grow to be a public airing of soiled laundry from in any other case opaque inside happenings, because of the ever-present personal arbitration clauses in Silicon Valley worker agreements.
The swimsuit was filed by Robert Bender in mid-December. Bender labored as Chief of Workers to Hidary from August 2024 by way of July 2025, the grievance states. He contends in his swimsuit that he was wrongfully terminated after elevating issues about quite a few alleged incidents, a few of which, he stated, concerned “sexual encounters” and others, he claims, that concerned deceptive monetary data offered to buyers.
For its half, SandboxAQ vehemently denies the allegations. The corporate’s lawyer Orin Snyder, a well known associate at white shoe legislation agency Gibson Dunn, tells TechCrunch: “This case is a whole fabrication. We sit up for debunking these baseless allegations and exposing the lawsuit — as detailed in our reply — for what it’s — an opportunistic and extortionate abuse of the judicial course of.”
What makes the case significantly notable is the variety of Valley heavy hitters concerned in SandboxAQ. The corporate is an AI quantum computing startup that started as a moonshot unit of Google mum or dad firm Alphabet, led at Google by Hidary. Hidary can also be well-known in Silicon Valley as a longtime X Prize board member.
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SandboxAQ was spun out of Alphabet into an impartial firm in March 2022 with Hidary as CEO and shortly attracted big-name buyers, together with billionaire and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who invested and have become the startup’s chairman. Different billionaire buyers embody Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, enterprise capitalist Jim Breyer, and Bridgewater hedge fund founder Ray Dalio.
Bender’s attorneys say in another court document that the redacted sections “describe sexual encounters and the bodily situation of non-party people noticed by Plaintiff throughout enterprise journey.” In different phrases, the alleged incidents contain individuals who Bender is just not suing. That is an uncommon transfer — usually, it’s the social gathering being sued that requests redactions, not the individual making the allegations.
Numerous explanations exist for such a tactic, and TechCrunch couldn’t verify what the motivations are on this case. Usually talking, the probabilities vary from defending harmless third events who aren’t accused of wrongdoing, to a shakedown technique — signaling that extra damaging particulars might emerge if the defendants don’t provide a suitable settlement.
The unredacted portion of the swimsuit supplies a couple of extra basic particulars of the allegations that had been hidden: Bender is alleging that Hidary used firm sources and investor funds to “solicit, transport, and entertain feminine companions.” In an connected exhibit of a textual content message from Bender, he mentions prostitutes.
Bender additional alleges in his swimsuit that Hidary bought tens of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} price of his inventory at a premium value primarily based on what Bender says had been deceptive figures offered to potential buyers. He contends within the swimsuit that income figures offered to the board had been 50% decrease than the figures proven in shows to potential buyers.
SandboxAQ’s legal professionals vigorously contest all the above. “The Firm didn’t make fraudulent disclosures to buyers relating to its tender provide or in any other case. The CEO didn’t misuse company belongings. Plaintiff invented these inflammatory allegations to fabricate statutory claims and to insulate himself from the results of his personal misconduct.”
Bender, for his half, alleges that the corporate has been making an attempt to smear him. His grievance asserts that he introduced his lawsuit, “solely as a result of his termination was adopted by a malicious scorched earth marketing campaign to destroy his fame.”
Whereas the validity of any of those allegations is for a jury to determine, a lot of his claims echo an investigative report on SandboxAQ revealed by The Information in July.
Sources informed The Info that Hidary was utilizing firm sources to fly ladies he was relationship on company jets, and that the corporate’s revenues had been far beneath its projections. Bender references The Info story in his lawsuit however denies he was a supply for it. SandboxAQ claims he was a supply and is mendacity about his involvement. (A replica of SandboxAQ’s full company response, together with extra allegations concerning the worker, could be found here.)
Regardless of any controversies, big-name buyers had been desirous to spend money on the corporate final yr. In April, SandboxAQ raised over $450 million in a Collection E funding spherical from Ray Dalio, Horizon Kinetics, BNP Paribas, Google, and Nvidia.
SandboxAQ additionally announced a $90 million secondary sale. SandboxAQ has raised $1 billion complete, it says, and is valued at $5.75 billion, in response to PitchBook estimates.
