Zoho Corp’s founder and CEO Sridhar Vembu finally took to Twitter, responding to his wife’s allegations that he abandoned her and his son, and that he also transferred money and company shares to himself and his family. “It is complete fiction to say I financially abandoned Pramila and my son,” he tweeted on Tuesday. “She is making unfounded allegations in court about my ownership interest in Zoho Corp and she has chosen to go to the press too. The matter is in court in the US, my filings are public,” he added.
The Zoho founder is apparently valued at $5 billion. Vembu tweeted, “They enjoy a far richer life than I do and I have supported them fully. My US salary for the last 3 years has been with her, and I gave our house to her. Her foundation also is supported by Zoho.”
Sridhar Vembu‘s wife of three decades, Pramila Srinivasan, according to a Forbes report, said that Vembu left for India in early 2020. According to a source close to Pramila Srinivasan, Sridat Vembu never returned and later contacted her via WhatsApp in November 2020 to say he wanted a divorce and filed papers in August 2021.
Vembu left the San Francisco Bay area to settle in the Mathalamparai region to build his company from the rural parts of India. On his decision to move back to India, he tweeted, “As our son got older (24 today) I felt the endless treatments he was under were not helping much and he would be better off in rural India, closer to loving people and helping to lift up people. She felt I was giving up. Our marriage collapsed under that stress.”
In a January court filing, as reported by Forbes, Srinivasan also alleged that Vembu made ‘fictitious transfers or sales of our most valuable community asset to his family members without their paying any cash or other consideration’, and without ever telling her or asking her permission. She claimed that he deliberately got rid of a big chunk of his Zoho stake in a transaction that moved Zoho’s intellectual property to India and placed the majority of the shares with her husband and his sister.
To this, Vembu responded, “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.”
Vembu blamed his uncle and said that his wife was getting influenced by his uncle, who he had given shelter at his California home. “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,” Vembu tweeted.
“Sadly Pramila has chosen to trust my uncle Ram who still lives rent free at our home, due to her own frustration that she feels I abandoned the fight on autism,” he added.
According to the Forbes report, Vembu moved to India motivated by his goal to create employment opportunities in rural areas. His contribution to the community has earned him praise and accolades and he was also honoured with the Padma Shri award. “I will continue to build institutions and capabilities in rural India, my only remaining purpose in life. My prayer is that someday my beloved son will join me here,” he tweeted.
