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SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — Google and its former CEO, Eric Schmidt, have been slapped with multiple lawsuits in recent months filed by Schmidt’s ex-romantic and business partner.
Entrepreneur Michelle Ritter is accusing the former Google chief executive officer and Google of seizing control of her professional and personal Google Workspace accounts, emails, and files. She further claims that Google failed to protect her data.
Schmidt, 70, and Ritter, 31, co-founded an AI and crypto investment company, Steel Perlot. The duo was reportedly in a romantic and business relationship at the time. Although Schmidt was married, Ritter claims he made promises to marry her, the Los Angeles Times reported.
The billionaire tech mogul lives in Atherton and served as an executive for Google from 2001 to 2011, according to Forbes.
After leaving his position as an advisor for Alphabet in 2020, Schmidt was approached by Ritter about investing in her tech startup. Schmidt invested more than $100 million into their business ventures and businesses, the LA Times reported.
When their relationship fell apart in 2024, Ritter claims she lost access to her Google Workspace account for Steel Perlot. Ritter filed a lawsuit in Santa Clara County Superior Court in September 2025 stating, “Defendants have, for over nine months, deprived plaintiff of access to her workspace, transferred control of it to others without authorization or notice, and … permitted others to convert her documents, data, and other materials,” the suit states.
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The workspace, files, and data contained “highly sensitive private, confidential, proprietary, and trade secret information,” according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit also claims that in late 2024, “Eric Schmidt and his affiliates … illegally took Ritter’s parked vehicle and her personal computer while she was at a family lunch in Malibu. The computer (contained) evidence of security breaches to Ritter’s Google accounts,” the suit states.
She filed a second lawsuit against Google and Schmidt in Los Angeles Superior Court this November. The second lawsuit claims that Schmidt built an insider “backdoor” to Google servers that allowed him to pry into Google accounts, the LA Times reported.
Ritter wrote on her LinkedIn page, “One of the most interesting and informative parts of building businesses is learning the difference between ‘unfortunate outcomes’ and ‘bad people.’ While I can now give definitive advice to never mix personal and professional matters, I am so proud of the work that we have been allowed to achieve at Steel Perlot.”
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Amy Larson
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