Former employee accuse top Trump backer Robert Mercer of racism

David Magerman claims he was wrongfully terminated for expressing his concerns about Mercer's support for Trump

One of US President Donald Trump’s top financial supporters Robert Mercer is being sued by a former employee who has accused the business mogul of wrongful termination after he complained publicly about Mercer’s political views and support of Trump.

In a suit filed on Friday in Philadelphia, David Magerman who worked as a research scientist at Renaissance Technologies, a hedge fund where Mercer is the co-CEO, stated that he designed algorithms used in the firm’s investment decision.

Mercer contributed millions of dollars to a Super PAC which was formed to pour money into Trump’s election campaign. He was also a major investor in Breitbart News, the controversial news site that supported Trump. According to the suit, it was Mercer and his daughter Rebekah Mercer who recommended that the Trump campaign hire Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway.



The suit states that after the election Magerman asked to speak with Mercer about his support for Trump and they spoke over the phone a week before the president’s inauguration. Magerman alleges that Mercer made racist remarks during the conversation saying the United States began to go in the wrong direction after the passage of the Civil Rights Act in the 1960s and that African-Americans had been fine before the act was passed, were worse off after it, and that the only racist people in the United States are black. Magerman said he was stunned by the comments and spoke to other executives at Renaissance about them.

The suit further stated that Mercer called Magerman a few weeks later and said, “I hear you're going around saying I'm a white supremacist.” Magerman said he disputed that characterisation and the two had another argument in which Mercer repeated many of the same opinions.

Magerman says he felt obligated to speak out against Mercer’s personal views, and that he checked if he could speak to the press about Mercer’s comments. Magerman says he the firm’s chief compliance officer told him that the comments he intended to make were permissible under company policy.



In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Magerman said he felt compelled to speak out against his boss’ views because Mercer was “using the money I helped him make to implement his worldview.”

Once the story was published, Magerman was suspended without pay. He was later fired when another story was published in the same newspaper which reported an argument with Mercer’s daughter Rebekah at a charity event in New York where she reportedly called him “pond scum”.

The suit includes a copy of Magerman's contract, which shows he was paid about $250,000 a year, plus bonuses, and that he was a termed an “at will” employee who could be dismissed “for any reason or no reason at all, with or without cause or notice.”

According to Vanity Fair, Magerman is seeking $150,000 in damages.

 

This article originally appeared on CNN Money.