The headquarters of software company Entrata in Lehi, Utah. Photo: Reuters/Kris Tripplaar/Sipa USA

The founder of a tech start-up currently valued at over $1 billion was in disgrace on Wednesday following a furor over a disturbing antisemitic email sent from his company account.

David Bateman — the founder of Utah-based software firm Entrata and a prominent Republican Party donor in the state — asserted in the email that the COVID-19 pandemic was a Jewish plot for global domination. He also claimed that Pope Francis was really Jewish, and that his installation in the Vatican was part of an effort “to consolidate all the countries in the world under a single flag with totalitarian rule.”

Among those who received Bateman’s rant on Monday morning were Ryan Smith, the owner of the Utah Jazz NBA franchise and an investor in Entrata, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox (R) and Utah Senate Minority Whip Luz Escamilla (D).

On Tuesday afternoon, Entrata CEO Adam Edmunds said Bateman had stepped down from the company’s board of directors and resigned his position as chairman.

“Dave is no longer a member of the board, effective immediately,” Edmunds said.

Edmunds also apologized for the contents of Bateman’s message. “To be absolutely clear, we at Entrata firmly condemn antisemitism in any and all forms,” he said.

Bateman’s email pulled no punches in advancing some of the most extreme and hateful of the antisemitic conspiracy theories that have mushroomed during the two year pandemic.

“I write this email knowing that many of you will think I’m crazy after reading it,” Bateman began. “I believe there is a sadistic effort underway to euthanize the American people. It’s obvious now. It’s undeniable, yet no one is doing anything. Everyone is discounting their own judgment and dismissing their intuition. I believe the Jews are behind this.”

He then claimed that “for 300 years the Jews have been trying to infiltrate the Catholic Church and place a Jew covertly at the top. It happened in 2013 with Pope Francis. I believe the pandemic and systematic extermination of billions of people will lead to an effort to consolidate all the countries in the world under a single flag with totalitarian rule.”

Another of Bateman’s falsehoods stated that “no one is reporting on it, but the Hasidic Jews in the US instituted a law for their people that they are not to be vaccinated for any reason.”

Alongside Bateman’s antisemitic barbs were a number of debunked claims about the epidemiological aspects of COVID-19. “The spike protein in both the vaccine and the illness are attacking the reproductive systems of women, and will eventually erode the number of T cells in our bodies that can ward off infections,” he wrote. Scientific studies have in fact shown that the vaccine generates a strong T cell response and boosts immunity.

The Democratic Party in Utah rounded on Bateman’s donations to the Republican Party, calling on the GOP to “return the $55,000 of donations that Entrata has directly given the party since 2017.”

Meanwhile, a local rabbi warned that the views expressed by Bateman in his email could easily translate into violence targeting Jews.

Denouncing the “blatant antisemitism” of Bateman’s email, Rabbi Avremi Zippel of Chabad Utah told the Associated Press: “We know how quickly things go from ridiculous conspiracy theories online and in emails, how that jumps to violence rather quickly.”