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This is a reputation/PR problem that SEO alone isn’t going to fix.
The hard truth is that if the allegations in that Medium post have any merit, no amount of link building or positive content spam is going to make this go away long-term. Google is pretty good at surfacing stuff people actually want to read, and “former CTO burns bridges publicly” is exactly the kind of thing people searching a company name are looking for during due diligence.
A few thoughts:
1. **Stop having the CEO respond publicly.** You already learned this the hard way. Every response just adds more indexed content about the controversy and signals to Google that this is an active, relevant story.
2. **Focus on building up OTHER pages that can rank for the company/CEO name** – not just the homepage. LinkedIn profiles, industry publication interviews, podcast appearances, legitimate press coverage about product launches or funding. You want to push the negative stuff down by having multiple pages you control in the top 10, not
