After Announcing Layoffs, Twitter’s Jack Dorsey Gifts $200 Million of His Twitter Stock to Staff
Jack Dorsey has announced that he’ll be giving one-third — which roughly translates to a whopping USD 200 million — of his Twitter shares back to Twitter employees. And, this welcome news wasn’t delivered behind closed doors or any meeting with the board of directors — Dorsey used his Twitter account to make the announcement.
If it’s an attempt at morale boosting, which many analysts claim it is, Dorsey may have his task cut out. After being announced the CEO of Twitter, Dorsey had to make the tough call of restructuring the organisation. After assuming charge, Dorsey admitted that the company had become too large, putting 8% of the staff in the line of fire. However, whether $200 million in stock will alleviate the uncertainty that has crept in since the layoff announcement remains to be seen.
After donating one-third of his shares to Twitter’s employee equity fund, Dorsey’s stake in the social media behemoth will be an estimated $400 million — a figure which pales in comparison to his stake in Square, the electronic payments company he founded along with Jim McKelvey in 2009. Dorsey owns 24% of Square’s shares, valued at $1.6 billion currently. And, what is worthwhile to know is Dorsey has also donated around 20% of his stake in Square to Start Small Foundation, an organisation that aims at investing in “under-served communities around the world.”
Dorsey backed up his decision to gift the shares to the company by tweeting,
