Indian-origin CEO who fired 900 on Zoom faces legal hurdle to get job back
US-based Better Home & Finance has asked a New York court to bar founder Vishal Garg from soliciting shareholder support for at least 30 days, escalating his fight to return as CEO weeks after the board removed him, Forbes reported.
The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in the US Southern District of New York, also asks the court to void any shareholder approval Garg has already collected.
Better’s board, with Garg not participating in the vote, unanimously voted to remove him as CEO on August 3, according to the company’s account. The company has pointed to losses of more than $1.5 billion since 2022 and a sharp decline in its stock price under Garg’s leadership.
In its complaint, Better alleges that Garg violated federal securities laws by seeking to build shareholder support for his return and by making what the company calls misleading statements.
From gracious exit to public feud
Garg’s tone changed quickly after his removal. On August 10, according to Better’s complaint, he demanded the resignation of the board. In a post on X shortly after, he wrote that he was “looking forward to what the new CEO can do.”
Thank you. Haven’t given up anything. I remain a director, the largest shareholder and the largest voting shareholder by far. Look forward to seeing what the new CEO @danielsethlewis can do. Rooting for him and the rest of the team. I will of course be there to support them and…
— Vishal Garg (@vishal_better) August 4, 2026
That goodwill didn’t last. By August 15, Garg had turned on Lewis and the board directly, writing on X: “The only people who may have committed securities law violations are Daniel Lewis and the board.”
the only people who may have committed securities law violations are daniel lewis and the board. watch how this plays out. i may be a hard, demanding boss, but i do all that i do with integrity and an extreme work ethic and level of care.
— Vishal Garg (@vishal_better) August 15, 2026
Better Home said Garg followed that post with a letter to the board on August 10 demanding the immediate resignation of all directors, while separately claiming on social media and in a Bloomberg interview that he had already secured support from a “group of concerned shareholders”. According to the lawsuit, Garg told Bloomberg’s The Close he had “already corralled 52%” of the shareholder vote, a claim the company says was made without filing any of the proxy disclosures required by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Story continues below this ad
Garg, for his part, dismissed the company’s allegations in blunt terms. Garg rejected the allegations, calling them “bubkus” — Yiddish for nonsense — in the Bloomberg interview and in comments posted on LinkedIn.
Why Better wants a 30-day freeze
At the centre of the lawsuit is Better’s request for a IPO disappointed, with shares dropping 93 per cent on the first day of trading. Better is now valued at around $300 million, a 96 per cent decline from its pandemic-era peak of $7.7 billion.
Story continues below this ad
Garg says the company can still turn a corner
Despite the losses, Garg maintains the business can be made profitable again if he is reinstated, pointing to the AI tools he championed during his tenure, including Betsy, an AI-powered voice assistant that helps process mortgage applications, and a crypto-backed mortgage product developed with Coinbase.
“I’ve been doing this for 10 years, but execution hasn’t been perfect,” Garg said. “I hope it gets resolved. I think the future still remains very bright for Better.”
For now, the dispute sits with the courts. Better continues to operate across all 50 US states and the UK, running on the same AI platform Garg built, even as the man who built it fights to get his old job back.
