Google moonshot spinout SandboxAQ is escalating its fight with a former top aide, accusing him of using a wrongful termination lawsuit as leverage in what it calls an “extortionate abuse of the judicial process.”
The AI-and-quantum-computing startup, spun out of Alphabet in March 2022, on Friday filed a detailed court response to a December lawsuit from Robert Bender, who served as chief of staff to CEO Jack Hidary from August 2024 through July 2025.
Bender’s complaint, which TechCrunch obtained, makes two broad categories of allegations:
- That Hidary allegedly used company resources and investor funds to “solicit, transport, and entertain female companions,” including, in one attached text message from Bender, a reference to prostitutes.
- That SandboxAQ allegedly presented inconsistent financial information to investors and its own board, allowing Hidary to sell tens of millions of dollars of his stock at a premium price.
Bender says he was fired in retaliation after raising concerns about those issues. He claims in the suit that his termination was followed by a “malicious scorched earth campaign to destroy his reputation,” and that he sued only after that alleged campaign began.
SandboxAQ: ‘serial liar,’ ‘complete fabrication’
SandboxAQ is not just denying the allegations — it is attacking Bender’s credibility head-on.
In its response, the company’s lawyers call Bender a “serial liar” and say his lawsuit “asserts false claims for improper and extortionate purposes.”
Orin Snyder, a prominent partner at law firm Gibson Dunn representing SandboxAQ, told 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.”
On the core claims, SandboxAQ states in its filing:
- “The Company did not make fraudulent disclosures to investors regarding its tender offer or otherwise.”
- “The CEO did not misuse corporate assets.”
- “Plaintiff invented these inflammatory allegations to manufacture statutory claims and to insulate himself from the consequences of his own misconduct.”
None of the allegations from either side have been tested in court. No findings of fact have been made.
Unusual redactions around alleged ‘sexual encounters’
One of the strangest aspects of the case so far is what’s not public.
Bender’s complaint contains heavily redacted sections that, according to a separate filing by his attorneys, “describe sexual encounters and the physical condition of non-party individuals observed by Plaintiff during business travel.” In other words, the most graphic claims involve people Bender is not suing.
Typically, it’s defendants who ask courts to seal or redact embarrassing material. Here, the plaintiff did it himself.
Lawyers and litigators say that kind of move can have multiple explanations — from protecting third parties who aren’t accused of wrongdoing to signaling that more damaging information could surface if a case doesn’t settle. TechCrunch reported that it couldn’t determine Bender’s motivations in this instance.
What is clear from the portions that are visible is that Bender is accusing Hidary of using corporate resources and investor money to fund personal relationships, including flying women on business trips. SandboxAQ denies this flatly.
Financial allegations echo earlier reporting
Bender’s lawsuit also targets SandboxAQ’s investor communications.
He claims that revenue figures presented to SandboxAQ’s board were roughly 50% lower than the figures shared with prospective investors, and that Hidary sold tens of millions of dollars of stock during a secondary transaction based on those allegedly inflated investor numbers.
SandboxAQ says none of that happened, insisting it “did not make fraudulent disclosures to investors regarding its tender offer or otherwise.”
Many of Bender’s claims mirror an investigative report on SandboxAQ that The Information published in July. That article, citing unnamed sources, reported that Hidary was using company resources to fly women he was dating on corporate jets and that SandboxAQ’s actual revenues were far below its own projections.
In his lawsuit, Bender cites The Information’s story but denies that he was a source for it. SandboxAQ’s response accuses him of being a source and lying about his role. The truth of that dispute has not yet been determined in court.
A rare public fight inside a well-funded moonshot
The case offers an unusually public glimpse into a company that, until now, mostly made headlines for its technical ambitions and marquee backers.
SandboxAQ started inside Alphabet as a Google “moonshot” focused on applying AI to quantum technologies. It spun out as an independent company in March 2022 with Hidary as CEO.
Since then, it has attracted some of the biggest names in tech and finance:
- Eric Schmidt, former Google CEO and Alphabet chairman, invested and became SandboxAQ’s chairman.
- Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, venture capitalist Jim Breyer, and Bridgewater founder Ray Dalio have also invested.
In April 2025, SandboxAQ raised more than $450 million in a Series E round from Dalio, Horizon Kinetics, BNP Paribas, Google, and Nvidia, and announced a $90 million secondary sale. The company says it has raised $1 billion in total funding and is valued at $5.75 billion, according to PitchBook estimates.
That combination — a high-profile founder, blue-chip investors, sensitive internal data, and now lurid allegations — helps explain why this dispute is drawing outsized attention.
Most Silicon Valley employment contracts funnel disputes into private arbitration, keeping messy details out of public court records. Here, however, the fight has spilled into a traditional lawsuit, turning what’s usually confidential “dirty laundry” into a matter of public record.
What happens next
The case is in its early stages. Bender is asking for damages over what he claims was wrongful termination and reputational harm. SandboxAQ is seeking to have his claims dismissed and to establish that his allegations are false.
A jury — if the case gets that far instead of settling — will eventually have to sort through Bender’s account, SandboxAQ’s rebuttal, and any additional evidence that surfaces around the redacted allegations and the company’s finances.
For now, the only thing that’s clear is that one of Alphabet’s most ambitious spinouts is fighting as aggressively in court as it does in the lab — and that both the money and the reputations at stake are very, very real.
