A Las Vegas jury began hearing opening arguments Monday in a civil trial over how John Matze, the co-founder and former chief executive officer of Parler, lost both his job and his 40 percent stake in the social media company in early 2021. Matze's attorney told jurors that conservative donor Rebekah Mercer and other Parler managers ran a coordinated campaign to intimidate and bully his client out of the company, while defense counsel countered that Matze was ousted for gross incompetence after the platform's role in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot fallout nearly destroyed the business.
The trial, taking place in the Clark County courtroom of District Court Judge Maria Gall, is the culmination of more than five years of litigation that began when Matze filed his wrongful termination and breach of contract lawsuit in March 2021, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Matze's attorney, Todd Bice, told the jury that Mercer and others plotted to remove Matze from Parler's leadership role, and cited a message in which Mercer allegedly wrote that there was a need to get rid of John asap. Mercer is described in court proceedings as a conservative political donor whose company financed Parler.
Bice argued that Parler had cooperated with the FBI and had even alerted the agency to online activity before Jan. 6, 2021, pushing back on claims that the platform played a role in the insurrection. He told jurors that accusations linking Parler to the Capitol riot were false, even as Facebook, Twitter and Amazon blamed the platform in the aftermath, and even as the app briefly became the number one app on Apple's App Store before the backlash hit.
A Platform Thrust Into the National Spotlight
Parler was founded in 2018 in Henderson as an alternative social network promising minimal content moderation for conservative and libertarian users, a Southern Nevada origin that placed the eventual legal fight squarely in Clark County District Court. The Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol put Parler in a national spotlight it was unprepared for, causing what the dossier describes as serious distress for the company. Apple removed Parler from its App Store, and Chad Clement, an attorney for the defense, said Apple used Matze's own remarks — given on a New York Times podcast on Jan. 7, 2021 — in its decision to pull the app.
According to Bice, Parler's user base, which he said topped 15 million people, had generated data on active voters that he described as potentially valuable, a detail offered as context for why control of the company was worth fighting over. Matze has said he was fired for planning to ban neo-Nazi groups in February 2021, and he has also said he discussed being bought out of the company on Jan. 6, 2021 itself.
Defense Says Matze Sought More Control, Not Less
Clement told jurors a different story: that Matze was dismissed for improper and intentional conduct that seriously harmed Parler, and that Matze in fact sought more control of the company rather than less. The defense also said Matze used Parler money to pay for his personal attorneys and, according to Clement, never invested his own money into the business. Parler managers, in a misconduct notification letter, wrote that Matze was fired for gross incompetence, and Clement said Matze's removal was carried out under Parler's own operating agreement. Bice countered that Parler managers had rewritten that operating agreement during a corporate restructuring aimed at raising money, framing the change as part of the effort against his client. The dossier notes that Matze had also threatened to destroy Parler in September 2020, months before his ouster. Defendants in the case have denied the accusations against them.
Political Figures Circled the Company
The trial testimony has also touched on the array of political figures drawn to Parler in its heyday. JD Vance was listed as a manager at Parler, appointed by Mercer's company NDM, and he participated in discussions about selecting a new chief executive, including conversations about Peter Thiel as a possible pick. Vance is not a party to the lawsuit. Radio host and former FBI co-deputy director Dan Bongino, who agreed to promote Parler in exchange for a small minority interest in the company, also drew interest from other outlets — Fox was reported to have considered buying Parler at one point, underscoring how much attention the platform attracted from the political right after Jan. 6.
Bongino's public comments about Matze's dismissal have generated their own parallel legal fight. In December 2025, the Nevada Supreme Court heard oral arguments in an appeal over whether Bongino's 2021 livestream remarks about Matze's firing amounted to defamation or protected opinion, according to the Las Vegas Sun. That appeal remains separate from the trial now underway before Judge Gall.
Years of Legal Maneuvering Before Trial
The road to trial has been long and procedurally dense. Eighth Judicial District Judge Mark Denton granted summary judgment for the defendants on Matze's direct conversion claim this summer, but allowed his conspiracy to commit conversion claim and other civil counts to proceed to a jury. Defense attorneys have argued that proving civil conspiracy under Nevada law requires showing an explicit unlawful agreement intended specifically to harm Matze, something they maintain never existed, framing the dispute instead as the result of a CEO who ran the business into the ground.
In May 2024, Parler LLC attempted to move the case from Nevada state court to the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada, according to Justia Dockets records, but federal proceedings were stayed and the case was remanded back to state court. By the time opening statements began, the paper docket sheet had swelled to 175 pages and 1,125 separate entries, a physical record of five years of aggressive litigation.
What Happened to Parler Since
Parler's corporate life continued to churn long after Matze's departure. In December 2022, parent company Parlement Technologies mutually terminated a proposed acquisition by the rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, following public controversy over his antisemitic remarks. Digital media conglomerate Starboard then acquired Parler from Parlement Technologies in April 2023 and immediately took the app offline to conduct a strategic review of the business, according to CityNews Toronto.
The trial before Judge Gall is expected to run through late September, with jurors ultimately deciding whether Matze's account of a coordinated ouster or the defense's account of a mismanaged company holds up. For a company that started as a Henderson startup promising a freewheeling alternative to mainstream social media, the courtroom fight now stands as one of the longest-running civil disputes to emerge from the aftermath of Jan. 6.
