Indian software-as-a-service (SaaS) major, Zoho Corp's founder and CEO Sridhar Vembu has taken to Twitter to refute allegations made against him by his estranged wife, Pramila Srinivasan. The allegations, made in a recent Forbes article, claimed that Vembu had abandoned Srinivasan and their special needs son and was withholding their fair share of Zoho's assets.
According to the Forbes report, Srinivasan had filed for divorce in California, where they had lived together for years. She claimed that Vembu had deliberately transferred a significant portion of his Zoho stake in a complex transaction that moved Zoho’s intellectual property to India and eventually placed the majority of the shares with his sister and her husband, without ever informing her.
However, Vembu strongly denied these allegations on Twitter, saying that he had never transferred his shares in the company to anyone else. He also stated that Srinivasan's claims were unfounded and that he had always supported her and their son financially.
5/ I will say this unequivocally: I never ever transferred my shares in the company to anyone else. I lived in the US for the first 24 years of our 27 year history and much of what constitutes the company was built in India. That is reflected in the ownership.
— Sridhar Vembu (@svembu) March 14, 2023
Vembu's tweet thread also revealed his personal backstory behind the allegations. He stated that he and Srinivasan had been in a 15-year-long fight against autism, which had left him "suicidally depressed".
1/ With vicious personal attacks and slander on my character, it is time for me to respond.
This is a deeply painful personal thread. My personal life, in contrast to my business life, has been a long tragedy. Autism destroyed our lives and left me suicidally depressed.— Sridhar Vembu (@svembu) March 14, 2023
Vembu also revealed that the allegations were being fuelled by his uncle Ram, who had been estranged from the family for decades. Vembu had invited his uncle to live with them in California a few years ago due to his terminal cancer and lack of family to care for him.
However, Vembu claimed that Ram was spreading malicious rumours about him and his siblings due to long-running frustrations with his own brother, Vembu's father.
7/ All of this mess was caused by my uncle Ram (my father’s younger brother) living in the US, who I gave shelter to due to his terminal cancer, taking out his own long running frustrations with my father. He is doing that by spreading malicious rumours about me and my siblings.
— Sridhar Vembu (@svembu) March 14, 2023
Despite this, Vembu vowed to continue building institutions and capabilities in rural India. He also stated that he would continue to support Srinivasan and their son for as long as he lived, and he expressed confidence that truth and justice would prevail.
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