- Spotify chief Daniel Ek has sold $176.3 million worth of stock this year.
- Spotify shares have surged 60% since the start of the year.
- Ek is not the only tech luminary to cash in despite rising value.
Daniel Ek, co-founder and CEO of Spotify, sold $176.3 million worth of his shares in the streaming service this year, as its shares continue to climb.
On April 24, Ek sold approximately 400,000 shares worth $118,800,000, according to an SEC filing. In a separate transaction in February, he sold 250,000 shares worth $57,505,000 per deposit.
The sales come as shares of Spotify have risen significantly in recent months, up about 60% year to date.
The company reported record profitability last quarter – although Ek acknowledged that Spotify had underestimated the impact of laying off 1,500 people in December (part of 2,500 total cuts in 2023).
Ek is one of several high-profile business executives selling off their shares amid explosive growth. By February, Jeff Bezos, Jamie Dimon and Mark Zuckerberg had sold shares of their respective companies worth around $9 billion – as shares of Amazon, JPMorgan and Meta soared.
And Ek — who hasn’t taken a salary since 2017 — isn’t the only Spotify executive to sell stock this year, either. Fortune notes that other members of Spotify’s C-suite, as well as former CFO Paul Vogel, have also sold tens of millions of dollars’ worth of stock this year.
Spotify did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
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