The CEO Who Fired 900 On Zoom Is Now Fighting To Regain His Job

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India-West News Desk

NEW YORK, NY – Vishal Garg, notorious for firing about 900 employees during a Zoom call, made news when he washimself fired as CEO of Better.com earlier this month. But now he is maneuvering to challenge the leadership of the mortgage lender he founded and wants his job back.

Investors representing 52% of Better’s voting shares are seeking to remove interim CEO Daniel Lewis and five board members, according to sources cited by The New York Post. Garg has lined up the investors as he seeks to challenge the leadership change.

The investor group has sent demands to Better’s lawyers and retained Quinn Emanuel, which has compiled shareholder consents representing the voting bloc. If Lewis and the directors do not step down, the investors plan to seek their removal through a shareholder vote, the paper reported.

The move follows Garg’s removal as CEO on August 3 and the appointment of Lewis, an investor who had joined Better’s board only about a week earlier. Garg was told around 1 p.m. that he was being fired, and his company email was shut off about 30 minutes later while Better shares were still trading, sources said. He was initially given no specific reason beyond being told that the board believed Lewis could do a better job.

The company subsequently gave a different account of his departure. In an August 14 statement, Better said every director other than Garg had unanimously voted to terminate him following “a series of decisions and actions that raised serious concerns regarding his judgment, temperament and credibility.” This differed from Better’s August 3 announcement, which said Garg and the board had “mutually agreed” that he would transition out of the CEO role.

Garg founded Better and became widely known in 2021 after firing about 900 employees during a Zoom call. He later apologized for how the layoffs were handled and temporarily stepped away from the company before returning as CEO.