After graduating from Oxford University, Pua worked for Andersen Consulting as a consultant. In March 1997, he started Cyber Village, an e-business consultancy. Pua and three friends opened an office in Kuala Lumpur with four staff.
On 9 November 2008, Pua was arrested during a candlelight vigil in Petaling Jaya to commemorate the first anniversary of the Bersih street demonstration. Pua was released on police bail on the morning of 10 November 2008 and was later charged for illegal assembly.
Death threat
On 10 August 2010, Pua received a live 5.56mm bullet along with a threatening note that were mailed to his constituency service centre. Pua stated that the threat may have been related to his proposal to the Selangor government to cut Bumiputera discounts for homes and commercial property priced above RM 500,000 in the state.
SYABAS suit
On 28 January 2011, Syarikat Bekalan Air Selangor filed a lawsuit against Pua claiming he had permitted Nanyang Siang Pau's Metro edition to publish words defamatory of it. The article quoted him saying the Selangor state government should take over the rights of management of water supply in the state if water concessionaires could not settle their debts. Syabas claimed the report had brought the company into public scandal and its image had been tarnished. The lawsuit sought an injunction to prevent Pua or his agents from publishing defamatory words against the company, and general damages and cost. Pua argued that Syabas, as a public authority performing a public service, had no locus standi in making a defamation claim. He also said he had a legal, moral and social duty as an MP and a member of the Selangor government Water Review Panel to publish those words and that the public had a right to know. Pua also filed a counter-suit claiming Syabas' suit was frivolous, vexatious and amounted to an abuse of the court process, which resulted in him suffering losses and unnecessary harassment and expenses. On 6 June 2012, the Malaysian High Court found that SYABAS had proven its case against Pua and ordered him to pay RM200,000 in damages to SYABAS and awarded SYABAS interest at the rate of 4% per annum from the date of judgment till full payment and also costs. Justice Amelia Tee Hong Geok Abdullah also struck out Pua's counter-claim application and granted SYABAS an injunction to restrain Pua and his agents from further publishing or giving permission to be published "similar defamatory words" against SYABAS. Pua later stated on his blog that he maintains "that the above statement is not defamatory, and will instruct my lawyers to file an appeal in the Court of Appeal". On 7 July 2012, Pua posted on his blog that although an appeal was underway, he was required to pay the amount of RM200,000 to SYABAS by 16 July 2012. DAP Malaysia subsequently initiated a mass fundraising campaign titled "RM1 for Water Rights: 100,000 Malaysians Support Tony Pua vs Syabas" calling for 100,000 Malaysians to donate RM1 each to help Pua pay for the damages to SYABAS. He subsequently won the Court of Appeal case. SYABAS appealed the decision to the Federal Court of Malaysia. In the 2015 Federal Court case, Pua won the appeal based on the Lucas-Box principle by providing his own reasonable meaning to the impugned words.
In 2012, Pua suggested that the Bumiputera discount for housing and real estate must be abolished for houses above RM500,000. He disagreed with giving discounts on expensive houses such as those priced at or above RM 1 million. In one of his statements, Pua said the government should reduce the number of civil servants. His idea was rejected by PKR leader Anwar Ibrahim as impractical. Pua said he wants to make the government sector become more efficient and less costly. Pua was invited by the organizers of the recent startup acceleration program held at Dewan Sivik.
