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Lawyers representing Steve Ballmer are seeking to dismiss the lawsuit that alleges LA Clippers The owner participated in the fraud by giving money to the star kawhi leonard According to court documents, made through the now-defunct Green Banking Company, the allegations have been described as “sensational” and “patently false”.
The filing is in response to a lawsuit initially filed on July 9, 2025, by 11 investors of Aspiration, which filed for bankruptcy in March of the same year. The lawsuit alleged that Aspiration co-founder Joseph Sanberg and others in the company defrauded investors out of millions.
At the time, Ballmer was not named as a defendant.
But following a series of reports from journalist and podcast host Pablo Torre that Ballmer’s investment in Aspiration was an attempt to circumvent the NBA’s salary cap, the investors filed an amended complaint on November 3, 2025, naming Ballmer as a defendant.
“Had Ballmer and Sanberg disclosed the true nature of Ballmer’s investment, Plaintiff would not have invested in (Aspiration) and/or retained his investment,” the Nov. 3 complaint states. “Thus Ballmer aided and abetted Sanberg’s fraud.”
Ballmer and the Clippers have denied that they manipulated the salary cap to pay Leonard and said they are cooperating with the NBA’s investigation into the allegations.
“I understand that Mr. Ballmer and his attorneys deny our claims, but the facts speak for themselves and overwhelmingly support our case,” said Skip Miller, plaintiffs’ attorney and partner at Miller Barondess, LLP in Los Angeles. “They are set out in detail in our lawsuit. I’m not going to repeat them here. We’re going to litigate this matter in court, not in the press.”
In September 2021, the Clippers and Aspiration announced a $300 million, 23-year sponsorship deal, which included signage at the Clippers’ new Inglewood, California, arena and a jersey patch component. That same month, Ballmer invested $50 million in Aspiration, The Athletic reported. Four months later, in April 2022, the Aspiration signed a separate four-year, $28 million sponsorship deal with Leonard.
An unnamed employee who worked for Aspiration reportedly told Torre last year that the deal with Leonard was “to bypass the salary cap.”
In Monday’s filing, Ballmer’s lawyers say Ballmer’s name was added to the lawsuit in “(investors’) zeal to recover the assets defrauded by Sanberg from anyone with the means to pay” and “there are no facts that demonstrate an agreement between Ballmer and Sanberg to engage in salary cap rigging.”
He later said, “While conjecture and unsupported assumptions may be appropriate in the world of Torre’s podcast, they have no place in a sworn legal argument.” Ballmer’s attorneys say the allegations in the amended complaint “track Torrey’s comments in his podcast almost verbatim.”
Torre said, “I did not write this lawsuit, so I cannot speak about the plaintiffs’ frustrations with Kawhi Leonard’s secret system of making nearly $50 million from his investments without doing any work.” “I stand by my reporting, which is backed up by thousands of pages of internal documents and multiple Aspirations employees, who alleged on my show that Steve Ballmer – and Clippers co-owner Dennis Wong – concealed a cap-servation scheme. We continue to welcome dialogue with the Clippers, who have declined interview requests since last summer.”
In the filing, Ballmer’s lawyers say the Clippers owner was a victim of Sanberg’s fraud and lost his investment.
In October 2025, Sanberg formally pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud.. Each count carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, and sentencing is scheduled for February 23, 2026, in the United States District Court for the Central District of California in Los Angeles.
Ballmer’s lawyers have asked the court to determine that the investors failed to present sufficient facts to state a legal claim. Ballmer’s lawyers also asked for the case to be dismissed. A hearing is scheduled for March 9, 2026, in Los Angeles County Superior Court in the City of Los Angeles.
