Citadel CEO Ken Griffin filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the Internal Revenue Service and the Treasury Department for the "unlawful disclosure" of his tax information.
In his complaint to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, Griffin accused the IRS of violating its legal obligation to protect his information by failing to establish appropriate safeguards over its record system.
The suit comes one year after ProPublica reported Griffin had an average income of $1.7 billion from 2013 to 2018, using data obtained by an anonymous source.
"IRS personnel exploited the IRS's willful failure to establish adequate administrative, technical, and physical safeguards for the IRS's data and records systems to misappropriate confidential tax return information ... and then unlawfully disclosed those materials to ProPublica for publication," the filing read.
The agency "made these unlawful disclosures knowingly, or at the very least negligently or with gross negligence," it further claims. "The IRS willfully failed to establish appropriate administrative, technical, and physical safeguards" over the billionaire's data.
Griffin was just one of several notable top earners highlighted by ProPublica's report. Among the other names mentioned were Tesla, SpaceX, and Twitter CEO Elon Musk; Amazon founder Jeff Bezos; and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
"IRS employees deliberately stole the confidential tax returns of several hundred successful American business leaders," Griffin told The Wall Street Journal. "It is unacceptable that government officials have failed to thoroughly investigate this unlawful theft of confidential and personal information."
The Citadel founder, boasting a $29.1 billion net worth, has been a notable megadonor to Republican causes. Most recently, Griffin pledged to back Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis if he decides to enter the 2024 presidential election.
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