Disgruntled ex-CEO allegedly hijacked domain title, caused $1M in damage and tried to sell it for $6,666,666: lawsuit | Latest Tech News
A disgruntled ex-CEO locked his former video recreation studio out of its own web site, knocked staff offline and triggered more than $1 million in alleged losses — then put the domain up for sale for $6,666,666, a new lawsuit claims.
The lawsuit, filed last week in federal court in Los Angeles, accuses former That’s No Moon Entertainment CEO Michael Mumbauer of seizing control of company-owned domains years after he was fired for trigger and utilizing them to sabotage the studio’s operations.
After his 2022 firing, Mumbauer grew “resentful about his termination” and launched a harassment marketing campaign that included threatening a senior government and their household, the grievance alleges. News of the lawsuit was reported by the gamer news web site Aftermath.
Michael Mumbauer, the previous CEO of That’s No Moon Entertainment, is accused in a new lawsuit of hijacking the studio’s domain title and making an attempt to sell it for $6,666,666. X/MichaelMumbauer
“At 6 a.m. on January 6, 2026, Defendant hijacked ThatsNoMoon.com, disabling TNM’s own access to that domain and TNM employees’ ability to e-mail with any external sender or recipient,” the grievance states.
The sudden shutdown left the studio successfully paralyzed, cutting off communications with traders, business companions and job candidates and forcing staff to abandon their regular work to triage the outage, according to the lawsuit.
Visitors who tried to log on to ThatsNoMoon.com had been instead redirected to a Swiss journey web site, the go well with acknowledged.
The weird redirect sparked confusion among outsiders, with business companions, players and potential hires left questioning whether or not the company had abruptly shut down or quietly fired key executives who had been immediately unreachable by electronic mail, the grievance says.
Mumbauer was terminated “for cause” on Feb. 17, 2022, after the company’s founders and board concluded that his “vision for the company did not align with theirs,” according to the grievance.
Former That’s No Moon Entertainment CEO Michael Mumbauer was fired for trigger in 2022, according to a federal lawsuit. X/MichaelMumbauer
The lawsuit alleges that while serving as CEO, Mumbauer “breached his duty to act in TNM’s best interests,” including by leaking “confidential and sensitive information to the media and to competitors.”
In September 2020, Mumbauer co-founded That’s No Moon alongside three other video recreation builders: Tina Kowalewski, Taylor Kurosaki and Nick Kononelos.
The lawsuit claims the hijacked domain was later listed for sale on GoDaddy for $6,666,666. US District Court
The 4 executives sought to make “narrative-driven video games” by drawing on their expertise from other studios such as Naughty Dog, Sony Santa Monica, Infinity Ward and PlayStation’s Visual Arts Group.
Shortly after the studio’s founding, the company’s founders agreed to buy 13 web domains containing variations of the “That’s No Moon” title, including ThatsNoMoon.com, which turned the studio’s major web site, according to the grievance.
The lawsuit says Mumbauer purchased the domains on the company’s behalf and was later absolutely reimbursed, but registered them in his own title and never transferred control to the company.
The company says it filed go well with after securing federal trademark registrations for “That’s No Moon” and associated marks. US District Court
The lawsuit claims the fallout from the domain seizure price the studio more than $1 million in January alone, as its four-person IT crew scrambled for days to migrate providers to a new web deal with and restore cascading technical failures.
After the initial outage, the grievance says the hijacked domain was redirected to a GoDaddy public sale web page itemizing it for sale at $6,666,666, while other company domains had been equally pointed to “for sale” pages that risked additional confusion and reputational hurt.
That’s No Moon was based in 2020. That’s No Moon
The grievance filed by That’s No Moon speculated that the $6,666,666 sum is “[a] number that [Mumbauer] may well have selected for its Satanic connotation.”
The company says it filed go well with after securing federal trademark registrations for “That’s No Moon” and associated marks, arguing that Mumbauer’s continued control of the domains now constitutes trademark infringement, cybersquatting and pc fraud.
The Post has sought remark from Mumbauer and TNM.
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