Spotify CEO Daniel Ek cashed out almost $100m in company stock last month
It comes after complaints that Spotify “deprives” artists of royalties
Spotify co-founder and CEO Daniel Ek reportedly cashed out close to $100m in company stock in December 2024, per Music Business Worldwide.
According to SEC filings published at the end of the year, Ek took home $93 million in SPOT (Spotify Technology S.A.) share sales across three transactions in December.
The first transaction was made on December 4, where Ek reportedly banked around $37 million, with a second transaction of more than $28 million on December 11, and a third on December 23 with a cash-out of close to $28 million.
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Music Business Worldwide reported that it had “closely monitored” Spotify’s share sales in 2024, and found that SPOT’s stock price jumped to record highs.
MBW also discovered that Ek and Spotify co-founder Martin Lorentzon had cashed out a grand total of more than $932 million throughout the year of 2024.
These figures come months after Ek was criticised by the ex-Global Head of Publisher Licensing at Spotify, Adam Parness, as he called the company’s latest subscription changes “misguided and unfair”.
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Parness said that Spotify’s updated “bundled subscription” service was an “ill-informed attempt to deprive songwriters and music publishers of their rightfully earned U.S. mechanical royalties".
Last year, Ek claimed on Twitter that the cost of creating music, or “content”, as he called it, is “close to zero” in the modern world. His comments sparked outrage online.
Many responded to his tweet, pointing to the high costs of creating music, including equipment costs, studio time, rehearsal spaces, mixing, mastering and travel. Primal Scream’s bassist Simone Marie Butler called the CEO out for being an “out of touch billionaire”.
[Via Music Business Worldwide]
Gemma Ross is Mixmag's Assistant Editor, follow her on Twitter
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