The Winklevoss Twins Are Suing Mark Zuckerberg Again
The Winklevoss twins are at it again! Tyler and Cameron, the crew-rowing siblings who walked away with a $65 million settlement after suing Mark Zuckerberg, have filed another suit against the Facebook founder, saying they didn't get enough last time.
The Winklevii—In case you didn't see The Social Network—are two Olympian, crew-rowing Harvard grads who hired Zuck to code for their start-up social network, Harvard Connection. Since the founding of Facebook, they've claimed that Zuck stole their idea, and some of the code he wrote for them, for his own social network; in 2008 they took a settlement for around (reportedly) $65 million. But now they want more!
You see, according to the Winklevii, their $65 million was calculated from an incorrect assessment of Facebook's worth—one that valued the share prices higher than they should have been. Facebook isn't having it:
Facebook's filing claims that the original settlement agreement ‘is enforceable because it clearly communicated the parties' intention to be bound and the terms were definite.'
The company claims the twins ‘admit that they calculated the value (of Facebook) themselves, based upon a truthful press release from several months earlier'.
‘Their fraud claim is based on omission: they fault Facebook for not volunteering a more recent - and, they claim, lower - valuation of different Facebook stock.
‘They insist that their sworn enemy had some special duty to open its books and volunteer any information that bears on the value of this closely held company,' it adds.
So, are they aiming for a better slot in the sequel to The Social Network? (I mean, that guy who played them? Armie Hammer? He was pretty good.) Or maybe this is why Mark Zuckerberg pledged to donate the majority of his fortune to charity—so the twins wouldn't get hold of it? Either way, it's always nice to see two privileged millionaire Harvard grads demand more money. Maybe with this settlement they can buy a third twin!