Better.com's new CEO vacations in France as company's ousted founder plots boardroom coup: sources

Better.com’s new interim chief executive flew to the South of France for vacation during his first full week on the job — even as the mortgage lender’s founder was busy orchestrating a coup to unseat him, The Post has learned. Ousted founder Vishal Garg, who made headlines in 2021 when he fired 900 workers on a Zoom call, has lined up investors representing 52% of the embattled company’s voting shares in a bid to boot interim CEO Daniel Lewis and five board members, according to well-placed sources. Lewis had told numerous people inside the company that he planned to spend the week in the South of France, sources said. One source said Lewis subsequently appeared on a Zoom call from what looked like a vacation setting in a different time zone. His planned trip had been openly discussed inside Better and was not a secret, sources said. “It’s sad Vishal’s life’s work underperformed Treasury securities,” Lewis told The Post in a statement. “I’ve never obliterated billions of dollars of shareholder value from any place at all.” The getaway comes amid an escalating battle for control of Better, with dissident shareholders already sending demands to the company’s lawyers and preparing to forcibly remove Lewis and the directors through a shareholder vote if they refuse to resign, according to sources. The insurgent group has retained powerhouse law firm Quinn Emanuel, which has compiled shareholder consents representing the voting bloc, the sources said. The process of forcing a shareholder vote could take as little as 10 days — although other avenues could stretch the showdown to 35 days, according to sources familiar with the plans. The revolt comes less than two weeks after Better abruptly dumped Garg as CEO and replaced him with Lewis, an investor who had joined the company’s board only about a week earlier, according to sources. Lewis also pleaded guilty last year to a 2022 drunken-driving charge in East Hampton, according to a background investigation obtained by The Post that cited public court records. He received a conditional discharge, was ordered to use an ignition-interlock device for a year, had his license revoked for six months and was fined $1,000. Garg was informed around 1 p.m. on Aug. 3 that he was being fired, and his company email was shut off roughly 30 minutes later while Better shares were still trading, sources said. He was given no specific rationale beyond being told the board believed Lewis could do a better job, according to the sources. Better subsequently offered Garg a vice-chair position with a hefty compensation package, sources said. The company presented a sharply different account in a press release on Friday, saying every director other than Garg had unanimously voted to terminate him following “a series of decisions and actions that raised serious concerns regarding his judgment, temperament and credibility.” That statement marked a dramatic shift from Better’s Aug. 3 announcement, which said Garg and the board had “mutually agreed” that he would transition out of the top job. The board also blamed Garg for delaying Better’s quarterly filing, saying his refusal to timely execute required representation letters was the “sole cause” of the delay.