Datavault AI founder Nathaniel Bradley sued his board on November 6, asking a Delaware court to declare his removal as chief executive void and restore him to office. The complaint alleges that board chairman and chief financial officer Brett Moyer suspended him without a board vote. It says he cut off Bradley’s email and rushed a defective Sunday meeting. That happened while a $90-100 million financing offer sat on the table.

Bradley built the technology behind the Nasdaq-listed company. He founded Data Vault Holdings in 2021, holds more than 70 patents, and previously founded AudioEye. WiSA Technologies acquired the Data Vault Holdings assets in December 2024 and became Datavault AI. Now he is suing the board he still sits on. The company says he remains a director even after removing him as chief executive.

The weekend a founder lost his company

The complaint lays out a five-day sequence. On October 28, Bradley asked the board to consider removing Moyer as chief financial officer. Two days later, on October 30, Moyer suspended Bradley on his own perceived authority, according to the complaint. The complaint says the board held no meeting and circulated no written consent, even though Datavault’s own bylaws give only the full board the power to remove officers. Bradley lost access to his email. A Sunday meeting followed, which the complaint calls defective.

Bradley put his position plainly in a statement released with the lawsuit. “I strongly dispute the legal validity of the Board’s decision to remove me as President and Chief Executive Officer,” he said. His lead counsel, Jacob Frenkel, a former SEC enforcement lawyer and federal prosecutor, went further. “When you’re out building and innovating and those you think you can trust decide to stage a corporate coup, the only place for relief is in court,” Frenkel said.

The $90-100 million offer nobody showed the board

The complaint alleges Bradley brought the company a $90-100 million funding offer one day before Moyer shut him out, and that Moyer “suppressed, withheld and concealed” it from the company’s independent directors. That figure is an alleged offer Bradley says he brought to the company. It is not confirmed funding, and no independent reporting has verified the offer or who saw it.

The allegation is the heart of the case. If the board’s independent directors never saw a nine-figure lifeline, they voted on a leadership change without the most important fact in front of them. If the offer was real and reachable, the lockout looks less like governance and more like a move to keep the founder away from his own rescue. Either way, the court will care about the paper trail: who received the offer, when, and what they did with it.

What the board says happened

The company’s side of the story arrived hours before the lawsuit, in a Business Wire announcement on the morning of November 6. The board appointed Moyer as chief executive and president. Kimberly Briskey became chair of the board. Sri Peruvemba became vice chair and Teri Gallo became chief operating officer. Stanley Mbugua became chief financial officer and Christopher R. Hardt became chair of the audit committee. All the appointments took effect immediately. The announcement states that Moyer succeeds Bradley, “who was removed as Chief Executive Officer and President on November 1, 2026. Mr. Bradley remains a member of the Board.”

A Form 8-K filed November 5 disclosed the removal and said the company terminated Bradley’s employment, effective November 1. The company also said former executive Sonia Choi is no longer with Datavault and cannot act on its behalf.

Briskey said the board acted “to strengthen Datavault’s leadership and governance, sharpen accountability and focus the Company’s resources on the opportunities that offer the clearest path to value for stockholders.” Moyer said the new leadership team “will be transparent about our progress, accountable for our results and committed to earning the confidence of our stockholders.”

The dates do not line up

Note the date gap, because it matters. Bradley alleges Moyer suspended him on October 30. The company says it removed him on November 1. Those two dates describe different events, and the gap between them is where the court will look. The board’s announcement also does not answer Bradley’s specific allegations. It says nothing about a board vote, an email cutoff, a Sunday meeting, or the financing offer. Presenting a new leadership slate is not the same as rebutting a complaint.

The company said it will report third-quarter 2026 results and share a business update. It has not announced a date yet.

Why the money matters

The financing offer matters because Datavault AI is short on room to maneuver. On October 26, the company told investors in a Form 8-K that four sets of financial statements should no longer be relied on, after concluding that bitcoin that Scilex Holding credited under a $150 million September 2025 stock deal never qualified as its own digital asset. Expected asset cuts run up to $92.2 million, and the shares fell by roughly half on October 27. A company restating its balance sheet and reassessing whether it can keep going needs cash, which is exactly what a $90-100 million offer would have been.

What the Datavault AI founder sues board case means for founders

Delaware’s Court of Chancery cares about process, not personalities. The complaint turns on a simple question: did the full board vote? If it did not, the bylaws may do Bradley’s work for him. If it did, his case gets much harder. That is the first lesson. Founder status is not protection. Paperwork is.

The second lesson is about roles. One person held the chairman’s seat and the chief financial officer’s job at the same time. That concentration let a single officer act, or appear to act, for the whole board. Founders should separate the chair and the chief financial officer, and write down who can suspend whom, before the fight starts.

The third lesson is about money. A financing offer that only the founder and the chief financial officer know about is a rumor, not a rescue. Get every offer to the independent directors in writing the same day it arrives, and keep the receipt.

The weekend lesson

The fourth lesson is about weekends. Boards move fast when nobody is watching. Bradley asked the board to consider removing Moyer on a Wednesday. By Sunday, the complaint says, Moyer had locked him out. Know your board’s meeting rules, know who can call an emergency session, and know what counts as a valid vote, because the weekend is when the rules get tested.

Governance adviser Erika Eliasson-Norris has spent her career inside boardroom fights, including forced CEO and chair removals. Activist funds watch for exactly this kind of opening. Anson Funds builds positions and pushes for board or executive change when it sees a gap between a story and the substance. More chief executive stories are in the CEOs archive.

Bradley wants his job back, and a Delaware judge will decide whether the process that removed him was valid. Whatever the court decides, the warning is already clear. If you founded the company, built the technology, and hold the patents, someone can still lock you out of your own boardroom in a weekend. Check who holds the keys before you need them.