The chairman of the company that pulled off 2021’s largest proptech fundraise resigned Tuesday after authoring an anti-vax email that framed the pandemic as a Jewish plot to euthanize Americans and take over the world.
David Bateman, co-founder and former CEO of Utah-based Entrata, the unicorn multifamily property management platform, sent an email to more than 50 investors and Utah tech and political leaders early Tuesday morning entreating them to oppose vaccinations, which he claimed were destroying people’s immune systems and part of a broader Jewish conspiracy.
“I believe the pandemic and systemic extermination of billions of people will lead to an effort to consolidate all the countries in the world under a single flag with totalitarian rule,” Bateman said in the email.
Fox13 originally reported the message. Entrata CEO Adam Edmunds tweeted a statement in the afternoon denouncing Bateman’s remarks as “highly offensive.”
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“The opinions expressed by Dave were his alone, and do not reflect the views or values of Entrata, the executive team, board of directors, or investors,” he said.
Hours later, Edmunds said the company had asked Bateman to step down from the board and confirmed his resignation, “effective immediately.”
Bateman, who remains Entrata’s largest shareholder and resides in Puerto Rico, stepped down as CEO in 2021 as the company raised $507 million in a funding round led by private equity firm Silver Lake, along with Qualtrics founder Ryan Smith and Vivint Smart Home founder Todd Pedersen.
It was the firm’s first external fundraise since its founding in 2003, and the largest private investment round in Utah’s history.
Qualtrics’s Smith and Vivint’s Pederson were both recipients of Bateman’s email, along with Utah Governor Spencer Cox, Senate Minority Whip Luz Escamilla, Economic Development Corporation of Utah CEO Theresa Foxley and “a number of other Silicon Slopes CEOs,” Fox13 reported.
Silver Lake condemned Bateman’s remarks in a statement, Forbes reported. “His email does not reflect our views in any way,” the firm said.
Bateman is no stranger to controversy. In 2019, he faced backlash over remarks deemed sexist at the Silicon Slopes Tech Summit in Salt Lake City. And In 2020, Trevor Milton, founder of the electric car company Nikola, sued him for defamation for accusing him on Twitter of harassing and sexually abusing women.
Entrata could not be reached for comment.