In 2011 his salary was $US50,000. The next year it jumped to $US1 million. That may have been the start of his troubles.

The capitalist fairy tale so adorably spun by Dan Price, the hunky head hero and co-founder of credit card processing company Gravity Payments, seems to be unravelling.

Price has been likened to Brad Pitt, Robin Hood and Jesus Christ since April when he raised the company's minimum salary to $US70,000 a year and cut his own pay from $US1.1 million to $US70,000. The New York Times and NBC were there for the announcement which brought him worldwide adulation. "It's not about making money, it's about making a difference", he told the Today Show.

But it now appears Price's altruistic gesture may have been calculated to counter a law suit from his Gravity co-founding brother Lucas, who had long been concerned by his greed. Not only that, but his ex-wife Kristie Colon has given a TEDx talk alleging that he beat her, according to Bloomberg Businessweek.

She told an audience at the University of Kentucky in October that she wrote the following about her ex-husband in her journal in May 2006: "He got mad at me for ignoring him and grabbed me and shook me again. He also threw me to the ground and got on top of me. He started punching me in the stomach and slapped me across the face. I was shaking so bad." She also recalled locking herself in a car, "afraid he was going to body-slam me into the ground again or waterboard me in our upstairs bathroom like he had done before."

Price told Bloomberg Businessweek these things never happened. TEDx plans to post Ms Colon's talk online after December 7.

The Seattle Times revealed in September that Price's brother Lucas, who owns 30 per cent of Gravity Payments, was suing him for overpaying himself. The lawsuit claimed this breached contracts between them and accused Price of violating Lucas' minority shareholder rights in other ways.

Gravity spokesman Ryan Pirkle suggested Lucas was put out that profits which might otherwise have come to him as dividends would go instead to employees' wages. But Bloomberg Businessweek reports that Lucas served the suit on his brother in March, almost a month before the fabled wage program announcement.

Lucas' lawyer was reported as saying the lawsuit was a culmination of "years" of effort to resolve his client's concerns about Price's running of the company. The wage program was added as a relevant issue to the suit in May because the program itself "appeared to be a reaction by Dan to the lawsuit", Lucas' lawyer Greg Hollon was quoted as saying. A trial date has been set for May.

In the three days after his April announcement, Price did 25 live media interviews, appearing on The Today Show and Good Morning America among many others. He signed with a talent agency, scored a book deal he claims is worth $500,000 and now charges up to $20,000 a speech. The top annual wages for CEOs with comparable net revenue and employee numbers (120) to Gravity ranges from $373,000 to $470,000, Bloomberg Businessweek reported.