Gearbox CEO Calls Original Claptrap Actor "Bitter and Disgruntled" in Latest Borderlands 3 Twitter Controversy

Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford continues to pick fights on Twitter. Now the famously controversial executive is directing his ire at David Eddings, the original voice actor for Claptrap in the Borderlands series, calling Eddings "bitter and disgruntled" after the latter alleged a payment dispute with Gearbox.

Last week, when fans asked Eddings if he would be returning as the voice of Claptrap in Borderlands 3, Eddings revealed, "No. For the first time, I insisted on getting paid for my performance and all of a sudden they couldn't afford me."

Eddings served as Gearbox's vice president of business development for 12 years, and voiced Claptrap on top of his other role at the company. Eddings reportedly was not paid for the additional work on top of his nominal salary. He also made a reference to the $12 million Pitchford allegedly took as a secret bonus for Borderlands, though Gearbox says this claim "has no basis in reality or law."

In response to Eddings' comments, Pitchford took to Twitter to call the former Gearbox executive "bitter and disgruntled about having been terminated." Pitchford added that Eddings was offered double the traditional voice actor union rate to return to the role, but that Eddings refused. Voice actor Jim Foronda is voicing Claptrap for Borderlands 3 instead.

According to a statement sent to IGN, Gearbox does have a policy to let salaried employees voice characters in its games but says it's not a requirement.

"Gearbox works to treat and compensate all voice actors at industry standards. We offer the opportunity for salaried employees to voice characters in the game but is not a mandatory responsibility to their job requirements," the statement says. "In this particular case, now that he was no longer an employee, we offered him an industry standard rate, but were not able to reach an agreement."

These are just the latest tweets from Randy Pitchford following an incident where he called out Game Informer for what he says is a "shitty clickbait headline," when it reported that Borderlands 3 will have microtransactions despite Pitchford saying otherwise. 2K Games confirmed that Borderlands 3 would have cosmetic-only microtransactions.

Pitchford's Twitter tirades aside, we were able to preview Borderlands 3 last week and came away impressed with its bigger, more sci-fi-y, scope. Check out our Borderlands 3 everything we know guide for more coverage including, trailers, previews, and more.