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PulteGroup executive fired over alleged Twitter harassment
Recently promoted COO Brandon Jones allegedly had a grudge against the company founder’s grandson
A PulteGroup executive was fired Friday after he allegedly used fake Twitter accounts and bots to harass the grandson of the company’s founder, the Detroit Free Press reported.
The Atlanta-based company, which is one of the largest homebuilders in the nation, announced Friday that it had fired Brandon Jones, a PulteGroup senior vice president who was set to start as chief operating officer in January, following an investigation that concluded he had violated the company’s code of ethics, the outlet reported.
On Wednesday, Bill Pulte, the grandson of the company’s founder, sued Jones — but not the company — alleging that Jones created several Twitter accounts under fake identities and ran a bot network to harass, defame and stalk Pulte and his family members.
The harassment campaign, according to the 129-page complaint (with exhibits) included unsubstantiated allegations that Pulte’s father, Mark Pulte, was responsible for a fire that burned down a country club in a Detroit suburb last winter.
Jones, the lawsuit alleges, sometimes used at least two fake accounts simultaneously to give the appearance of an ongoing dialogue. He sometimes carried out his harassment campaign while on company time with company equipment, the lawsuit alleges.
Jones allegedly carried a grudge against Bill Pulte because Pulte, while he was on PulteGroup’s board of directors from 2016 to 2020, opposed Jones’ promotion to COO, according to the lawsuit. Jones was ultimately promoted to COO — with Pulte no longer on the board — in October and was set to start in that role in January.
Bill Pulte has 3.2 million followers on Twitter and is known for frequently giving money to various causes and individuals in need.
“My grandfather spent 68 years of his life making sure the company was secure, so I view this as a spiritual mission,” Pulte told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“I love this company and the majority of the employees are awesome. But I think you have the potential of some rogue executives that maybe convinced themselves that the rules didn’t apply to them.”
The lawsuit, filed in Florida federal court, seeks monetary damages of up to $75,000.
In a statement to the Journal Constitution, Jones’ attorney, Mark Raymond, said the lawsuit contains “many falsehoods and inaccuracies.”
PulteGroup, which is the third-largest homebuilder in the U.S., recently bought 80 lots at Avenir in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, for $8 million, and paid another $6.9 million for a 6.7-acre development site in Plantation, with plans to build an 86-unit townhouse project.
— Ted Glanzer