Twitter Inc’s CEO Elon Musk has offered the employees of the microblogging company stock grants valuing the firm at $20 billion, less than half of the $44 billion the billionaire paid to acquire the company last year, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal.
However, details about the number of employees receiving the stock grants and the value of shares have not been ascertained.
Musk in the note to staff said that he is optimistic about the future of the social-media company. “I see a clear, but difficult, path to a >$250B valuation,” implying that stock granted now would be worth 10 times more, he said.
According to the WSJ’s report, the Twitter CEO told his employees that the firm would make “very significant stock and other compensation awards, based on performance”.
The new stock grants will vest over four years, the report added. The grant will be in addition to and separate from any legacy Twitter equity that was converted to cash at the time of the company’s takeover by Musk in 2022 October.
In 2021, the social media firm spent nearly $630 million on stock-based compensation. At that time, Twitter had 7,500 employees.
At present, its headcount is about 2,300 active employees after thousands of staff were fired in phases over the last few months.
Even last month, the company sacked around 200 employees or about 10 percent of its workforce.
