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.
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".
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.
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.
