Joe Lonsdale
The claims against Palantir co-founder and popular Silicon Valley venture capitalist Joe Lonsdale will make your stomach turn. In late January, a recent Stanford grad, Elise Clougherty, filed a lawsuit accusing Lonsdale of “a sexually, emotionally, and physically abusive relationship.” Lonsdale, who is also a founder of the VC firm Formation8, has since filed a countersuit claiming their relationship was consensual. The basic facts, which are in both the suit and countersuit, are the following: Lonsdale and Clougherty first met through a mutual friend in New York when she was a Stanford student. About a year later, Lonsdale served as an official mentor for Clougherty in a Stanford tech entrepreneurship program. The two entered into a relationship, which lasted for about a year between 2012 and 2013. Clougherty claims in her suit that Lonsdale hand-picked her to be his mentee, deliberately started a relationship with her, and over the course of the year became increasingly abusive. She’s asking for $75,000 in damages. Here are some of the details of alleged abuse from the complaint via TechCrunch (Editor’s warning: the following excerpts contain graphic descriptions of sex and sexual abuse):
Lonsdale denies that any of this happened. His countersuit claims he never had an influence over her grade in her technology entrepreneurship class, and when they entered into a relationship it was completely consensual. He produces quotes from numerous emails in order to back up his points. He is asking for $150,000 total in damages, plus punative damages and the costs of the lawsuit. From his countersuit: In late March, Mr. Lonsdale and Ms. Clougherty finally travelled in Europe together, and, in Rome, they had sex for the first time. Mr. Lonsdale and Ms. Clougherty’s sexual relationship, both in Rome and at all times thereafter, was always consensual. Ms. Clougherty never expressed to Mr. Lonsdale during their relationship that she believed that any sexual acts were non-consensual… To the contrary, she regularly expressed her love and affection for Mr. Lonsdale and the happiness she experienced dating him. In addition to the countersuit, Lonsdale put up a website defending his side of the story. He writes: Throughout the course of our relationship, she regularly expressed her love and affection for me — which I reciprocated. There are hundreds of emails from her telling me how much she loved me, how happy she was, and how excited she was about our future. She said that I was “like the boyfriend every girl dreams about but doesn’t think actually exists.” On another occasion, she wrote in a handwritten card, “I want to learn more about you too to love you deeper in return for the way you love me. You are a really special man.” These and other effusively loving emails exist from throughout the entirety of our relationship, including some from immediately after we broke up. He includes links to many email exchanges between the two, although most of Lonsdale’s responses are blacked out. Last week, Formation 8 provided this statement to Business Insider: These allegations are inconsistent with the partner we have come to know over the past few years. Moreover, we have very clear employment procedures at Formation 8, and Ms. Clougherty was never an employee of Formation 8. This is obviously a highly personal situation for Joe, and we have agreed to allow him whatever time he needs to address this matter. Formation 8 intends to promptly seek to dismiss these baseless claims against the firm. Clougherty’s lawyers sent us this statement: Ms. Clougherty expected Mr. Lonsdale and his attorney to release a self-serving PR campaign of denial. She will certainly give Mr. Lonsdale a full opportunity to explain his conduct in this litigation and looks forward to hearing Mr. Lonsdale’s statements when he is under oath and subject to cross-examination.” Ms. Clougherty knows the truth and is confident that her lawsuit will reveal it to the public. Lonsdale’s spokesperson did not provide Business Insider with a comment on the record. The post The rape accusations against Silicon Valley VC Joe Lonsdale are horrifying appeared first on Business Insider.
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