CALIFORNIA: The e-mail was blunt: Mark Zuckerberg had no interest in playing nice with the guy from next door.
“How do we make this go away?” a Zuckerberg adviser wrote to his real estate agent. “MZ is not going to take a meeting with him … ever.”
Now that 2013 e-mail, and others like it, are at the centre of property war gone rogue. On one side is Zuckerberg, the billionaire founder of Facebook. On the other is the businessman from next door, a real estate developer who hoped to profit from Zuckerberg’s desire for privacy.
This is no back-fence squabble over who trims the tree. The story laid out in court documents shows how Silicon Valley’s power elite fends off those seeking to force their way into the club and share the wealth.
At its heart are themes that have been with Zuckerberg since Facebook’s inception and popularised via film in “The Social Network,” the fictionalised look at the hoodied man-boy behind the company: brass-knuckle tactics, bravura performances, whiffs of betrayal. Only this time, the fuss is over his lot in a once ordinary Northern California subdivision.
The Winklevoss twins once claimed Zuckerberg, their former classmate and business partner, reneged on his promises. The developer in this case, Mircea Voskerician, also says Zuckerberg broke his word. Zuckerberg’s lawyers say that’s nonsense – and that Voskerician is just trying to squeeze money out of a billionaire.
In one corner: Facebook co-founder and billionaire Mark Zuckerberg. In another corner: Zuckerberg neighbor and real estate developer Mircea Voskerician. In the center: the property behind Zuckerberg’s house. And both sides are headed to court over it.
It all started back in November 2012 when Voskerician was set to buy the property in back of Zuckerberg’s house in Palo Alto, California. Voskerician sent Zuckerberg a letter telling him he was planning to tear down the home and build a replacement that would overlook the Zuckerberg home.
Voskerician says he acted as a “good neighbor” and proposed to sell Zuckerberg some of that property so that Zuckerberg could have more privacy, and that turned into an agreement to sell him the whole thing. Voskerician says that in return Zuckerberg promised to introduce him to some Silicon Valley bigwigs, a claim Zuckerberg’s lawyers deny.
In fact, the Zuckerberg camp denies everything, and says Voskerician used “extortive” tactic, and Voskerician sued for breach of contract, fraud and misrepresentation. Unless they reach an agreement, it could go to trial and if Voskerician wins he could get the property back.
Meanwhile, Zuckerberg apparently is making sure he doesn’t have this issue with any other possible neighbors. He bought the other properties surrounding his home for $38 million, even though they were assessed at close to $4 million total.
