New Delhi: Lucky Bucket Brewing, a brewery in Nebraska, near the Omaha metro area, has called out Indian tech billionaire Arun Pudur for lifting “photos from (their) Twitter account in order to allege he was distributing hand sanitizer to local orphanages.”
Pudur, a the founder and group president of Celframe, a company that produces office productivity suite software, tweeted the same pictures as the brewery with the caption: “We converted one of our factories to manufacture Hand sanitizers and distributed them for free in nursing homes, nursing homes, & orphanages of all faiths. Sanatana Dharma doesn’t discriminate against anyone. The lies being spread are now getting a reply. Leave all in peace.”
https://twitter.com/arunpudur/status/1261887372591091712?s=20
Soon after, he was called out by many for lifting the photographs and lying, following which he took to Twitter again, declaring how the “Bait of Sanitiser” was successful. “We have now over 2,000 accounts of peacefuls with Hindu names and also fake photos. Time to find what they did. More will keep coming. No other way to get so many,” he tweeted, sharing screenshots of the accounts he has blocked, presumably of those who called him out.
Pudur has come under criticism earlier for allegedly lying about being a billionaire and the money his company, Celframe makes. In 2015, a wealth tracker in Singapore called WealthX ranked Pudur on number 10 on its list of the richest people under 40 in the world, with an estimated worth of $4 billion. As the only Indian to feature on that list, his name began appearing in leading Indian dailies like The Economic Times and his Twitter following shot up and has now reached 64.6k.
He says he became a millionaire at the age of 21 and a billionaire by 26, and claimed to dabble in the mining industry, developing a resort in Malawi and a $10.2 million investment in Genesis Telecom.
However, all this came crashing down when Forbes Asia, a leading business magazine, failed to verify any of these claims made by him. A detailed report from July 2016 lists all the gaping holes in his story, from botched financial statements, small offices and employees who cannot be found anywhere on the internet. His biggest seller, the article stated, was a knockoff of Microsoft Office “that he says boasts 25.6 million users, including U.S. multinationals such as General Electric, Krispy Kreme, MTV and Boeing.”
Lucky Bucket Brewing, however, remains blissfully unaware of Pudur’s history. “Hoping this is all just some sort of a weird misunderstanding and those overseas are getting the support and sanitizer that they need. These are weird and scary times and we hope everyone is staying safe!”, the account tweeted.