Elon Musk offers new equity grants to Twitter employees: Report
1 min read 26 Mar 2023, 07:23 AM ISTIn 2021, Twitter spent nearly $630 million on stock-based compensation. At that time, social media had 7,500 staff
PremiumTwitter Inc CEO Elon Musk has offered his employees stock grants at a valuation of nearly $20 billion, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal. However, details regarding the number of employees who received the equity grants and the value of shares could not be found.
Musk in an email had informed his staff in February about the grants. According to WSJ's report, Musk informed Twitter employees that the firm would make "very significant stock and other compensation awards, based on performance".
Former employees told the US daily that Twitter offered stock grants, which vested over several years, as part of employees’ compensation. The stock-based compensation is a popular trend in many US IT companies.
The new grants will vest over four years, WSJ added. It will be in addition to and separate from any legacy Twitter equity that was converted to cash at the time of the acquisition in 2022 October.
In 2021, Twitter spent nearly $630 million on stock-based compensation. At that time, social media had 7,500 staff.
At present, the company has a headcount of about 2,300 active employees as Musk fired thousands of staff after he bought the company in October 2022 for $44 billion.
Last month, Twitter laid off at least 200 employees or about 10% of its workforce in its latest round of job cuts since Elon Musk.
When WSJ asked Twitter for further queries, the social media platform responded with a poop. Notably, Elon Musk tweeted that Twitter will auto-response to media inquiries.
Musk's SpaceX company has used company stock to attract and pay employees. SpaceX is a privately held company at present. Therefore, the company periodically invites current and former employees to sell their shares if they choose in order to provide an opportunity to monetise their holdings. SpaceX’s valuation has risen over the years. The latest data pointed out that Musk's space exploration firm is valued at $140 billion, up almost fivefold from 2018.
