Microsoft CEO: ‘I’m going to ****ing kill Google’ ?

Microsoft Corp. CEO Steve Ballmer vowed to “kill” internet search leader Google Inc. in an obscenity-laced tirade, and Google chased a prized Microsoft executive “like wolves,” according to documents filed in an increasingly bitter legal battle between the rivals, reports The Sydney Morning Herald:

The allegations, filed in a Washington state court, represent the latest salvos in a showdown triggered by Google’s July hiring of former Microsoft executive Kai Fu-Lee to oversee a research and development centre that Google plans to open in China. Lee started at Google the day after he resigned from Microsoft.

After learning [former Microsoft engineer Mark Lucovsky] was leaving to take a job at Google, Ballmer picked up his chair and hurled it across his office, according to the declaration. Ballmer then pejoratively berated Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Lucovsky recalled.

“I’m going to f—ing bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again,” the declaration quotes Ballmer. “I’m going to f—ing kill Google.”

The Sydney Morning Herald

However, Mr Ballmer has dismissed the claims. “Mark’s decision to leave was disappointing and I urged him strongly to change his mind. But his characterisation of that meeting is not accurate,” he said in a statement.

BBC News