Google CEO Sundar Pichai testified briefly in his federal financial conspiracy case on Friday. The trial surrounding the bankrupt startup Ozy Mediawhich contradicts alleged claims by company founder Carlos Watson that the search giant once tried to buy Ozy.
Google did consider hiring Watson for a high-level news chief job in 2021 and investing $25 million in Ozy as a compromise for poaching him, Pichai told jurors.
“Mr. Watson has been an important part of Ozy Media and we were considering investing in the company to ease the transition,” he explained.
But “have you ever offered to buy Ozy Media for $600 million?” asked prosecutor Dylan Stern.
“No,” said Pichai, who heads Google and parent company Alphabet Inc.
He said he was introduced to Watson at a conference and then in a video interview about a possible job at Google involving liaison with news outlets. Neither the hiring nor the $25 million investment ultimately materialized.
Watson later told another potential investor that Pichai himself had made a nine-figure offer to buy Ozy, according to prosecutors. The Mountain View, California-based company previously produced television programs, podcasts and a music and ideas festival. will collapse in the fall of 2021 amid questions about whether it distorted its audience reach, deals and finances.
Ozy Media lawyer Shannon Frison said in an emailed statement Friday that it is “absolutely not true” that Watson told anyone that Google had made a $600 million offer.
“He never had those conversations with Google, and he never told anyone about it,” Frison said.
Watson and Ozy Media have He pleaded not guilty charges including conspiracy to commit fraud. He stated that he built a reliable and real company, did not deceive anyone, and is being prosecuted for making, at best, entrepreneurial “mistakes.”
Lawyers blame Ozy co-founder Samir Rao for all the misrepresentations, arguing that he falsely accused Watson in hopes of avoiding prison himself. Rao pleaded guilty to identity theft and conspiracy to defraud and is awaiting sentencing.
Earlier in the trial, he testified that his “moral compass” was damaged by ambition, desperation to save the company and Carlos’s “deep belief that failure is impossible and we must do whatever it takes.”
Among other deceptions, Rao infamously posed as a YouTube executive—even using a phone app to disguise his voice—to argue Ozy’s defense to Goldman Sachs investment bankers during a February 2021 phone call.
“This was one of the most disturbing calls I have ever received in my career,” Goldman chief executive Hillel Merman said Friday, calling the episode a “surreal experience.”
Rao testified that he performed a phone trick to support the false claim that YouTube was paying for Watson’s talk show of the same name. Rao said Watson was with him during the call and was texting him about what to say: “I’m a big fan of Carlos, Sameer and the show,” said one text shown to jurors.
Defense attorney Ronald Sullivan Jr. said Watson entered the room during the conversation, realized it was a “train wreck” and tried to convince Rao to end the conversation.
On the other hand, Moerman thought the alleged YouTube executive’s voice was clearly “off,” among other clues that raised the suspicions of Goldman bankers, he recalled Friday.
One of his colleagues soon called the current head of YouTube, which is owned by Alphabet. The ruse was revealed. The same thing happened with Goldman’s investment potential.
“We were deceived,” Moerman explained to jurors in Brooklyn federal court.
According to Rao’s testimony, Goldman Sachs continued to promote Ozi after this episode.
Watson told the board of directors of Goldman and Ozy that Rao was having a mental health crisis. Rao told jurors he was taking antidepressants at the time but was not on a psychiatric break.