Bill Ackman’s nephew vs ‘Ronda’: US billionaire’s viral rant against employee who is suing him for harassment

Bill Ackman made a multi-thousand-word post on X disclosing a family company scandal as he wanted X users to comment on it while making his stand also clear that he won’t settle a lawsuit brought against his company by a former employee whom he fired and who is now bringing allegations of harassment against Ackman’s nephew. The post which read almost like a novel went viral as several high-profile personalities like Elon Musk, Chamath Palihapitiya, Donald Trump Jr. reacted ti his stories and supported Ackman’s stand to fight it out. Long story short: At the center of this lawsuit is his private family office TABLE which was founded 15 years ago to handle his personal finances. The company grew big and the expenses ballooned while he was busy with his other companies. Late last year, he brought his nephew, a Harvard grad, to look into the company. The nephew spoke to the employees and suggested laying off one-third of the staff, including the president. The in-house lawyer of the company and one of the highest paid employees, whom Ackman called ‘Ronda’ for convenience in understanding, demanded two years’ severance and then sent a threatening letter from a Silicon Valley lawyer alleging 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 Ronda herself was the head of workplace compliance. According to Ackman, Ronda and her husband who works at a prominent Silicon Valley VC firm calculated that they would get a huge amount of money from Ackman as Ronda knows all the pressing situations that Ackman is facing — his daughter’s brain hemorrhage on February 5, his upcoming IPO etc. Ackman said he won’t go for a settlement and will instead fight it out. “Agree. This bs has gone too far,” Elon Musk replied. Donald Trump Jr too said he agreed with Ackman’s decision and this has to stop. Chamath Palihapitiya said he learned the hard way after settling frivolous claimes earlier. “I’ve dealt with a bunch of this nonsense in the past. It’s the “tax” I spoke about on the pod this week. It was simpler to pay it for a while because it was relatively small dollars each time (a few million here or there) but then the system realizes I am a mark and won’t stop. hen they try to come after tens or hundreds. I finally got fed up with it and drew a hard line in the sand with a bunch of folks who sued me for profits they didn’t deserve. They lost. I won. I will never settle again. Only fight,” he wrote. A majority of social media users had fun reading about how a billionaire is throwing his “nepo-nephew” under the bus and exposing an employee who filed a lawsuit against him.