Google moonshot spinout SandboxAQ claims an ex-exec is attempting ‘extortion’

Summary

A former SandboxAQ executive filed a wrongful termination suit last month filled with such scandalous allegations against the company’s famed CEO, Jack Hidary, that plaintiff himself redacted the most salacious details. On Friday, the company’s lawyers filed a blistering response, calling the former employee a “serial liar” and stating his lawsuit “asserts false claims for improper and extortionate purposes.” Even the visible portions of the lawsuit — which TechCrunch has obtained — contain eyebrow-raising allegations, should a court find them valid. (A copy of the lawsuit is available here.) The case offers a rare inside look at how employee lawsuits can become a public airing of dirty laundry from otherwise opaque internal happenings, thanks to the ubiquitous private arbitration clauses in Silicon Valley employee agreements. The suit was filed by Robert Bender in mid-December. Bender worked as Chief of Staff to Hidary from August 2024 through July 2025, the complaint states. He contends in his suit that he was wrongfully terminated after raising concerns about a number of alleged incidents, some of which, he said, involved “sexual encounters” and others, he claims, that involved misleading financial information presented to investors. For its part, SandboxAQ vehemently denies the allegations. The company’s lawyer Orin Snyder, a well-known partner at white shoe law firm Gibson Dunn, tells TechCrunch: “This case is a complete fabrication. We look forward to debunking these baseless allegations and exposing the lawsuit — as detailed in our answer — for what it is — an opportunistic and extortionate abuse of the judicial process.” What makes the case particularly notable is the number of Valley heavy hitters involved in SandboxAQ. The company is an AI quantum computing startup that began as a moonshot unit of Google parent company Alphabet, led at Google by Hidary. Hidary is also well-known in Silicon Valley as a longtime X Prize board member. Techcrunch event San Fra...