Business

Twitter CEO gives staff $200 million in his own stock

Jack Dorsey says the moral-boosting move is to "reinvest directly in our people."

Written by Charlie Osborne, Contributing Writer Oct. 23, 2015 at 3:01 a.m. PT

Twitter CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey has announced plans to give back one-third of his own stock in Twitter to company employees.

Dorsey, who was named the microblogging platform's permanent CEO earlier this month, said in a tweet he will give Twitter stock equating to one percent of the company to the employee equity pool to "reinvest directly in our people."

Dorsey also tweeted:

Worth approximately $200 million, the move comes after Twitter suffered an exodus of a number of high-profile employees, with the majority of the firm's management team resigning or replaced.

In July, former CEO Dick Costolo resigned from his position as chief executive as the microblogging platform's growth stagnated, failing to meet Wall Street expectations.

Unfortunately for Twitter staff members, the departures do not end there. Last week, Dorsey said roughly eight percent of the company's employees -- 336 people -- would be laid off as part of a streamlining effort. The chief executive called the move a "tough but necessary" decision.

According to Thomson Reuters data, Dorsey now owns a 3.2 percent stake in Twitter, less than Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, who has taken a four percent stake in the company.

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At Twitter's annual developer summit, Twitter Flight, Dorsey said he wanted to implement "greater transparency" going forward when it comes to communication between the developer community and Twitter's corporate team.

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