A deep-pocketed AI startup whose clients include New York City’s MTA and the Los Angeles Metro has filed a lawsuit accusing its ex-CEO of forging documents to secretly sell his shares in the company – and then scooping up a waterfront home in Florida and a fleet of luxury sports cars.
In an added twist, the tech firm alleges that after it ousted its co-founder and former chief executive, Christopher Carson, he threatened to call former New York Mayor Eric Adams over what he claimed was wrongful termination, according to court documents.
Hayden AI – a San Francisco-based outfit valued at an estimated $464 million with backers that include buyout giant TPG, Mitsubishi and numerous venture firms – alleges that Carson sold $1.2 million worth of stock in January 2024 without the knowledge or approval of the board, according to court documents.
To pull off the alleged scheme, Carson forged board members’ signatures – grafting them from an unrelated company document to create a phony resolution that authorized the sale, according to a lawsuit filed last week in California state court in San Francisco.
Around that same time, Carson bought and renovated a $2.7 million waterfront spread in Boca Raton, Fla., even as he blew his stock windfall on luxury watches and designer handbags, according to court documents.
Carson likewise splurged on a fleet of luxury cars that included a 2023 Aston Martin, a McLaren 750S, a gold Bentley Continental and a Ducati motorcycle, according to the suit.
Hayden AI – which installs AI-powered cameras on buses in New York, LA and Washington, DC to detect vehicles illegally parked in bus and bike lanes – claims that after it ousted Carson over the alleged fraud in September 2024, the CEO responded by threatening to complain to New York’s then-mayor Adams.
“For now I am raising these concerns privately,” Carson wrote at the time, according to the suit. “But if they go unaddressed, I will escalate this matter – including through direct discussions with Mayor Eric Adams of New York City, with whom I’ve already had preliminary conversations.”
Carson didn’t respond to requests for an interview.
“Mayor Adams would never get in the middle of a dispute between an employer and employee,” said Adams’ spokesperson Todd Shapiro. “If I had a quarter for every time someone said they were going to call the mayor, I’d be a rich man.”
Investors have plowed some $177 million into Hayden AI, while attracting talent like former Microsoft executive Stuart McKee, who previously headed operations, and former US Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx, who served a stint on Hayden AI’s board.
“We spent months attempting to resolve this privately, but it became clear that legal action was needed to protect our team, our customers and fair competition in our industry,” a Hayden AI spokesperson said.
Carson’s allegedly unauthorized transactions caused inaccuracies in Hayden’s capitalization table in Carta, a financial management software favored by startups, that were ultimately traced back to Carson, according to the suit.
Hayden AI also claimed that Carson fabricated his past. Carson wrote on his LinkedIn and resume that he received a PhD degree from a Japanese university in 2007.
“That is a lie,” the suit alleges. “In 2007, he was not obtaining a PhD but was operating ‘Splat Action Sports,’ a paintball equipment business in a Florida strip mall.”
When Hayden AI launched an investigation, Carson directed a subordinate in the IT department who was unaware of the probe to copy reams of company secrets onto a USB drive, according to the suit. Carson may now be using the stolen data to operate a competing company, Boca Raton-based EchoTwin AI, the suit alleges.
“Armed with 41 gigabytes of Hayden’s confidential information including trade secrets that Carson lifted straight out of Hayden’s proprietary data in the form of Carson’s entire email file, Carson founded EchoTwin,” the lawsuit claims.
In September, EchoTwin AI raised an $8 million seed funding round led by Turkey-based Metis Ventures. At least nine Hayden AI employees defected to EchoTwin, according to LinkedIn profiles. Neither EchoTwin nor Metis responded to requests for comment.
Hayden AI also alleges that Carson claimed to be a Marine Corps veteran who played an active role in the first Gulf War, serving for four years. In reality, the suit claims, he was discharged after only two years of service.
While Carson bragged about his military service, posing in a military uniform in social media posts, his outfit wasn’t from the US Marines but instead from a Myanmar militia active during the country’s civil war, according to the suit.
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