Josh Raffaelli, a prominent Silicon Valley investor known for his involvement with various Elon Musk ventures, is suing his former employer, the trillion-dollar AUM Brookfield Asset Management, as reported by The New York Times.
Raffaelli’s lawsuit primarily addresses Brookfield’s handling of pandemic-related real estate losses, claiming he was fired after submitting a whistleblower complaint to the SEC. The allegations include serious claims of fraud and bribery, which Brookfield has strongly denied, according to The Times.
In February, Brookfield discreetly closed the venture capital unit led by Raffaelli and shifted several assets into another division, as Bloomberg reported. One of Raffaelli’s points of contention in the lawsuit is that Brookfield failed to purchase the amount of stock in Musk-associated companies he had arranged.
The lawsuit claims Raffaelli had agreements to invest in Musk enterprises such as SpaceX, xAI, and the Boring Company, along with the assertion that his Brookfield fund significantly supported Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, as noted by Bloomberg.
This lawsuit marks a high-profile confrontation for Raffaelli, who formerly served as a partner at the venture capital firm then known as Draper Fisher Jurvetson, which is now a collection of funds. During his time at DFJ, Brookfield was instrumental in facilitating investments in Musk’s companies, including SolarCity (acquired by Tesla), SpaceX, and Tesla.