Apartment Management Platform Chairman Ousted After Rant Blaming Jews For Covid
The chairman of the board of apartment management software specialist Entrata has resigned from his position after sending an email on Tuesday morning from his company account asserting that the Jews are behind a "sadistic effort underway to euthanize the American people" via coronavirus vaccines.
The email from David Bateman, first reported by Fox 13 in Salt Lake City, had "Genocide" for its subject line and was sent to Utah Jazz owner and Qualtrics CEO Ryan Smith, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, Utah Senate Minority Whip Luz Escamilla, Economic Development Corporation of Utah CEO Theresa Foxley and a number of other Utah-based CEOs. Entrata is headquartered in Lehi, Utah.
"I write this email knowing that many of you will think I'm crazy after reading it," Bateman said in his email, which he later confirmed to Fox 13 that he had sent.
"I believe there is a sadistic effort underway to euthanize the American people," Bateman continued. "I believe the Jews are behind this. For 300 years the Jews have been trying to infiltrate the Catholic Church and place a Jew covertly at the top. It happened in 2013 with Pope Francis. I believe the pandemic and systematic extermination of billions of people will lead to an effort to consolidate all the countries in the world under a single flag with totalitarian rule."
Bateman made other claims in his email as well, such as that the vaccine attacks the reproductive systems of women and that Bill Gates and George Soros are involved somehow. Those claims have been kicking around awhile in the darker corners of the internet.
On Tuesday, Entrata CEO Adam Edmunds tweeted that the company's board of directors had asked Bateman to resign from the board, including his position as chairman. Bateman agreed to do so, effectively immediately. Edmunds posted a separate statement on Twitter disavowing Bateman's comments in particular and antisemitism in general.
"The opinions expressed by Dave were his alone," he said.
Denunciations of the email came swiftly from the Utah tech community.
"Dave Bateman has been the worst representative of Utah tech for years," Blake McClary, a Utah tech executive who runs the Salt Lake City chapter of Silicon Slopes, tweeted ahead of Bateman's resignation.
"It's time for him to step down from Entrata and enjoy his tax haven in Puerto Rico and not embarrass us," McClary said.
Until his email, Bateman wasn't publicly known to be antisemitic or anti-Covid-19 vaccination. He previously had been active in Utah state Republican politics, especially as a GOP fundraiser, and more recently has been living in Puerto Rico.
As of mid-2021, Entrata said it was processing more than $20B in multifamily rent payments each year, serving more than 20,000 U.S. apartment communities. In July, the company announced that it had raised $507M in funding, led by Silver Lake, Qualtrics' Smith and Vivint Smart Home founder Todd Pedersen.
