The Pulte family has filed a suit against PulteGroup, Inc. executive Brandon Jones for allegedly using Twitter bots to “stalk, harass and defame” the company’s late founder William J. Pulte and his grandson Bill Pulte.
Bill Pulte skyrocketed to fame for giving away money to people in need on the platform.
Now, the family alleges that Jones is using bot accounts with fake identities to harass Bill and his 3.3 million followers.
Today we’re making public SOME of the bots we believe “COO” Brandon Jones (who I’m suing, https://t.co/88XkXlXRGE) is using to violate Twitter TOS, PulteGroup Ethics ($PHM), and potentially SEC/fed law.@EverythingTaket 🤖@Stephen_Matthe 🤖@GoDetroitWin 🤖
— Pulte (@pulte) December 21, 2022
According to a report from Law & Crime, the lawsuit alleges that Jones was using “a sophisticated network of fictitious accounts,” known as bots, “to target, publish and artificially amplify incessant, targeted, coordinated and malicious harassment attacks on Pulte, his grandfather and The Pulte Family.”
The grandson of William Pulte said in a statement that the lawsuit was filed to “protect the legacy of Pulte Homes, my grandfather who was my mentor and partner, as well as my own reputation and to prevent Jones from doing irreparable harm through his continued spreading of vicious lies.”
More lawsuit updates coming soon
Sign up at https://t.co/88XkXlGOEE or follow me here @Pulte. Told our lawyers to find a way we can give subscribers an hour or two lead on some of these breaking stories unfolding in the ‘Bill Pulte v Brandon Jones (ex COO of PulteGroup)’ case.
— Pulte (@pulte) December 27, 2022
Jones was named Chief Operating Officer of PulteGroup in October and was expected to begin formally on Jan. 1, 2023. He has since been fired, according to a report from CBS News.
“Having recently been made aware of certain social media activity by a company executive, we are conducting a thorough investigation to determine the facts and whether there has been a violation of our company’s standards and policies,” a PulteGroup spokesman told CorpGov in a statement.
The Pulte family lawsuit alleges that Jones was using a photo of a dead man on a fake account being used in his harassment campaign.
“The Pulte Family, the founding family of PulteGroup, is utterly shocked that this behavior is being done by a Fortune 500 Executive, especially at our beloved Pulte Homes, and we have asked the independent board members of PulteGroup, who each have the ability to exercise their fiduciary duties to assist in any investigation to determine if any crimes were committed by Brandon Jones, including his undisclosed promotion of PulteGroup stock and information that may have been confidential,” said Bill Pulte, who is CEO of Pulte Capital and was a director of PulteGroup from 2016-2020, according to CorpGov’s report.
Jones’ attorney, Mark Raymond, has denied that his client used bots to target or harass anyone. He stated that “unfortunately, Bill Pulte’s far-fetched claims have had their desired effect, causing Mr. Jones’ termination from the job that he loved, and public humiliation at the hands of Mr. Pulte’s relentless and uncaring media machine.”
Pulte’s attorneys have also notified the company’s general counsel, Todd Sheldon, to preserve documents related to Sheldon’s personal Twitter account, which was deleted after Pulte contacted the board of directors this week, Pulte said, according to a report from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “That deletion was very odd.”
PulteGroup was founded in 1950 and is the nation’s third-largest home builder. They have built approximately 750,000 homes across the U.S.
