Article Image

IPFS News Link • Lawsuits

This Hyperloop Lawsuit Is Insane

• https://www.wired.com

The likelihood that you will someday zoom across the country at supersonic speeds through a tube just got a lot smaller.

The leaders of Hyperloop One, the leading effort to take the transportation system from Elon Musk-powered fantasy to reality, have embraced a Silicon Valley cliche: They're suing each other. And the details involve a suspiciously overpaid fiancée, an attempted coup, and a noose.

Co-founder and CTO Brogan BamBrogan has resigned and filed a lawsuit accusing the company and his co-founder Shervin Pishevar of breach of fiduciary duty, violating labor laws, wrongful termination, breach of contract, defamation, infliction of emotional distress, and assault. It's a serious blow that could scare away crucial investors and make the company's goal—revolutionizing transportation—even harder.

wired_hyperloop-video.jpg

Related Video

The Age of the Hyperloop Has Arrived. Well, for the Most Part

Hyperloop, while theoretical, is no sci-fi pipe dream. The engineering is fundamentally sound. "The question is, can it compete from a capital standpoint and an operating standpoint and a safety standpoint," said David Clarke, director of the Center for Transportation Research at the University of Tennessee, back in May.

In other words, can Hyperloop win customers away from existing transportation methods? Doing that requires things like raising the billions of dollars of transportation infrastructure demands, addressing safety concerns, and bringing in paying customers at competitive ticket prices. Try doing all that in the midst of a corporate civil war.

And this particular civil war is going to be messy. BamBrogan and colleagues Knut Sauer, David Pendergast, and William Mulholland say the company leaders "established an autocratic governance culture rife with nepotism, and wasted the company's precious cash." In the lawsuit, which names Shevin Pishevar, Afshin Pishevar, board member Joseph Lonsdale, and CEO Rob Lloyd as defendents, they allege that Shervin Pishevar paid his fiancée $40,000 a month for public relations work and hired his brother Afshin as the company's general counsel. He allegedly told senior engineers to stop work to give office tours for various guests—including a nightclub doorman—and manipulated stock options to take advantage of employees.


JonesPlantation