It hasn't been a good last few weeks for Pimco Chief Investment Officer Bill Gross.

First, a Wall Street Journal article last month portrayed him as a boorish manager whose adversarial style helped push out Pimco CEO Mohamed El-Erian.

And now William Popejoy, a Pimco trustee for 23 years, is going after Gross. First, he criticizes the Pimco co-founder for his reported $200-million annual salary.

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"You could hire 2,000 schoolteachers for that money," the former financial executive tells the Los Angeles Times. "I don't know what Bill should be paid, but $200 million is not appropriate."

The Journal story said Gross compared himself with racehorse legend Secretariat. "I don't know if Secretariat made $200 million a year," Popejoy quips.

He calls Gross' recent performance "mediocre" and termed his management style "bullying, if what I read is true."

Allianz, the German financial conglomerate that owns Pimco, should investigate Gross' behavior and consider trimming his salary, Popejoy argues.

He says Pimco has a problem if Gross manages workers as The Journal article described. "You just can't treat people that way and expect things to be ok," Popejoy notes. "You have to treat people with respect."

Gross defended himself in an interview with Reuters last week, but that didn't necessarily give his reputation much of a boost.

"This clearly has the potential for being distracting," Michael Rosen, chief investment officer at Angeles Investment Advisors, tells Bloomberg. "We prefer our portfolio managers to simply manage portfolios and not spend time thinking about what’s being said in the media."

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Related Stories:

• WSJ: Tension With Gross Helped Spark El-Erian's Departure From Pimco
• Pimco's Gross Declares El-Erian Is 'Trying to Undermine Me'