A lawsuit against Vinod Gupta, CEO, InfoUSA, has accused him of wasting the company's money on high-profile guests, according to a report on the website of The New York Times.
The report said when former President Bill Clinton and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton took a family vacation in January 2002 to Acapulco, Mexico, Vinod Gupta provided his company's private jet to fly them there.
"The company, infoUSA, one of the nation's largest brokers of information on consumers, paid $146,866 to ferry the Clintons, Gupta and others to Acapulco and back, court records show. During the next four years, infoUSA paid Clinton more than $2 million for consulting services, and spent almost $900,000 to fly him around the world for his presidential foundation work and to fly Hillary Clinton to campaign events," the report said.
Those expenses are cited in a lawsuit filed late last year in a Delaware court by angry shareholders of infoUSA, who assert that Mr. Gupta wasted the company's money trying "to ingratiate himself" with his high-profile guests, the report added.
Gupta is an IIT-Kharagpur alumni, and funded the Vinod Gupta School of Management in 1993. According to information on the company Web site, 'Vinod 'Vin' Gupta is chairman and CEO of infoUSA, Inc (formerly American Business Information Inc) headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska.'
'Gupta came to the United States in 1967 after receiving his bachelor's degree in engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology. He earned a master's degree in engineering and an MBA at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. Mr. Gupta has served as the company's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer since its incorporation in 1972. Vin plans to give all his money to charity.'
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