PulteGroup is firing its new COO after a lawsuit alleging harassment on Twitter
PulteGroup fired its new COO after the company’s founder’s grandson sued the CEO this week, alleging he harassed him on Twitter.
Brandon Jones, senior vice president of field operations, is leaving the company “effective immediately,” according to a press release on Friday, after an “independent investigation” determined that he violated the company’s code of ethical conduct. Jones was slated to become the second in command of the Atlanta-based homebuilder next month.
The announcement comes after Bill Bolt, the grandson of the late William J. Bolt — who founded the company in Detroit in the 1950s — sued Jones on Wednesday. In the defamation case, the defendant is accused of having a grudge against him and using several fake Twitter accounts to harass him and other members of Bolt’s family.
Attempts to contact Jones by phone on Friday were unsuccessful. Executive Director Ryan Marshall is taking over Jones’ responsibilities on a temporary basis.
Pulte served as a member of the company’s board of directors from 2016 to 2020 and is CEO of investment firm Pulte Capital Partners LLC. He is known as a philanthropist on Twitter, and frequently donates money on the platform.
In a statement released Friday, he said the company’s board “took a necessary first step” in limiting the company’s liability and said the termination was an admission of a “defamatory bot network operating on company time” by Jones.
“While management threatens layoffs and fails to diversify the management team, some have found time to run secret Twitter accounts while simultaneously applying PulteGroup social media policies to employees,” he said.
Bolt said he tried to settle the matter privately with board members earlier this week before filing the lawsuit to “do justice to shareholders and my family.” He urges the board to “fulfill their fiduciary obligations” and to hire a law firm unrelated to the department’s existing contracts to conduct an “independent investigation to determine which SEC regulations, federal law, and other company policies were harassed.” He noted that the initial investigation leading to Jones’ firing was conducted by King & Spalding LLP, an established contractor.
The Detroit News left phone and email messages seeking comment from PulteGroup on Friday afternoon.
Bolt sued Jones as an individual, rather than in his corporate role, in circuit court in Palm Beach County, Florida, where Bolt now lives. He requested between $30,000 and $74,999 in treatment.
Bolt’s lawyers said in the filing that the Twitter accounts have accused Bolt’s family of arson, elder abuse, breach of securities laws, and more. Some of the insults, they wrote, included “confidential non-public information from PulteGroup Inc.” They claimed that one of the fake accounts used the name and photo of a dead man.
An account managed by Jones, according to the lawsuit, indicated that his father, Mark, was involved in a fire at the Oakland Hills Country Club in February.
In response to Bolt’s February 17 statement of his condolences over the fire, Jones allegedly wrote: “Are you insinuating that your father had something to do with the fire? Was Mark Bolt involved in the fire? Mark Bolt recently bought a competing course. Is that a coincidence?”
Bolte’s lawyers wrote in the lawsuit that his grandfather asked him to help “turn the situation around” at PulteGroup Inc. In 2016, when then-CEO Richard Dugas implemented a strategy recommended by consultants at Boston Consulting Group that Bolt’s grandfather deemed ineffective. This was the year the company moved its headquarters to Georgia from Bloomfield Hills.
According to the lawsuit, Bolt joined the company’s board of directors to bring the company “out of this state of distress.” During private board meetings, Marshall, the CEO, suggested that Jones be promoted from Michigan Division Chief to COO, a move Bolt deemed “strange”.
Bolt wrote that Jones was a supporter of Dugas’ and Boston Consulting Group’s strategy and a “close friend” of Marshall, but that he was not qualified for the position. Bolt opposed the motion and the board agreed with it, refusing to promote Jones, according to the suit.
He claimed that Jones still received “preferential treatment” and rose faster than other qualified directors across the country. The suit says he believes Jones somehow knew about the deliberations about not being promoted to COO, “which appears to be the source of Jones’ false allegations and half-truths.”
Jones started working at PulteGroup in 2004, according to his LinkedIn profile, where he has held positions at MIT Financial and Intel Corp. Before that. He holds a master’s degree in Business Information Systems from Brigham Young University.
bnoble@detroitnews.com
Twitter: @BreanaCNoble
rbeggin@detroitnews.com
Twitter: @rbeggin
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