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Better.com CEO Lied to Investors to Keep Them From Jumping Ship: Lawsuit

A former executive has accused Vishal Garg of misleading investors while trying to take the company public—and then firing her when she asked questions.

A former executive at Better.com has accused the digital mortgage lender and its axe-happy CEO of misleading investors in a bid to keep a planned merger on track, according to a new lawsuit. The filing, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, accuses chief executive officer Vishal Garg, best known for firing 900 people in three minutes last year, of lying about the firm’s financial prospects and performance in an effort to go public through a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC. The suit’s plaintiff, Sarah Pierce, was Better.com’s executive vice president for sale and operations until February, when she claims she was pushed out for confronting Garg and asking questions about the deal. In her complaint, Pierce claims that Garg continued to insist the floundering company would return to profitability in early 2022 “despite Pierce and other senior leaders explicitly stating that this outcome was not possible,” according to Bloomberg News. In a statement, Better.com said that the company believed the suit’s claims to be “without merit. The company is confident in our financial and accounting practices, and we will vigorously defend this lawsuit.”