Better Home & Finance's board removed founder Vishal Garg as chief executive on August 3 and replaced him with Daniel Lewis, setting off a fight for control that has now escalated into litigation. Better sued Garg on Tuesday, accusing him of running a "scorched-earth campaign" to regain control of the company. The legal clash follows a sharp public shift in Garg's stance toward Lewis: when Better announced Garg's departure, he said "now is the right time for new leadership" and called Lewis the "right person to lead the company through this important time in its evolution," later writing on X that he was "[looking] forward to what the new CEO can do." By Aug. 15, however, Garg alleged on X that "the only people who may have committed securities law violations are Daniel Lewis and the board." The dispute adds to years of turmoil at the New York-based mortgage lender, which processed more than $110 billion in loans before going public through a SPAC merger in 2023 and was backed by SoftBank and Goldman Sachs. Better's valuation fell from $8 billion during the pandemic refinancing boom to about $300 million after the public listing, and its stock has dropped sharply since Lewis took over. Garg remains closely tied to Better's 2021 Zoom layoff of roughly 900 employees and a management style that drew repeated criticism. The new complaint cites employee allegations that he referred to staff as "mortgage monkeys," adding to prior reports that he called workers "dumb dolphins" and later labeled laid-off employees "lazy." An internal review prompted by his conduct found he "failed to set a tone at the top that supported a strong culture of internal controls" and said Better had become "less effective than others in our industry at capturing potential customers." Garg was placed on leave after the mass layoff and later returned as CEO in 2022.