Billionaire Twitter Cofounder Evan Williams Unloaded Nearly Half Of His Twitter Stake Since April

[laserhaas]

Source: Forbes

Link to tweet

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Evan Williams, who helped invent Twitter more than a decade ago and briefly served as its CEO, has unloaded nearly half of his Twitter stake since April, documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commision show. Because he is required to pay taxes on his capital gains every time he sells shares, Forbes now pegs his net worth at just under $1.7 billion, down from $1.8 billion, according to Forbes Real-Time ranking.

The past year has been strong for some major technology stocks. In the past 12 months, Twitter’s stock has risen about 58% to $32.84 when markets opened on Friday. Five big tech firms, including Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Netflix and Nvidia, hit historic highs this June. “In an uncertain world with significant downside economic tail risks, technology has been seen to be, correctly, relatively stable,” Peter Oppenheimer and Guillaume Jaisson, analysts at Goldman Sachs, wrote in a report this summer. By comparison, the S&P 500 is up less than 1% in the past 12 months.

Although Williams won’t comment on why he sold so much, the move is perhaps just common sense diversification of his investments. It could also reflect a view that Twitter’s best days have come and gone.

Read more: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kathleenchaykowski/2018/12/09/billionaire-twitter-cofounder-evan-williams-unloaded-nearly-half-of-his-twitter-stake-since-april/#3a4da33b715a

[laserhaas]

1. Could it be that the owner of Twitter, hates Trump? - Or

is the - "shadow banning" thing - too much to stomach?

[AJT]

2. 1.7 billion, down from 1.8.....gosh, I hope is going to be ok.

[Chellee]

13. I know, poor thing.

In the third best bathroom of his second best yacht, instead of solid gold taps, he might just have to have (sob) gold-plated.

[PeeJ52]

3. Maybe people will one day wake up

and realize that having the best twitter put down doesn't really get anything done. People spend too much time wasting time with snark responses instead of talking face to face and organizing to get things done.

[GusBob]

7. Now you just stop right there mister

Or miss.

Stop making sense. And welcome to DU

[duforsure]

4. Maybe people should abandon

twitter too until the orange one is banned from it.

[RockRaven]

5. More like a realization that the people who actually pay twitter are getting fleeced,

and they will eventually figure out they are getting fleeced. How are they getting fleeced? A lot of the likes, retweets, mentions, and active accounts numbers which twitter uses to justify the rates it charges for sponsored content and the like are inflated by bots. And the people doing the paying have no idea how inflated those numbers are. But they will learn some day. And when they do, twitter stock will drop like a rock.

[FakeNoose]

12. I'm still wondering ... what do the advertisers get on Twitter?

I'm sure you're quite right about the fleecing. If Twitter ever got rid of all the offensive trolls and fake duplicate accounts, the advertisers would see what a small echo chamber it is, and drop them immediately.

[paleotn]

6. Maybe, as an insider....

he's fully aware that the market caps of these companies is based on smoke, mirrors and Wall Street hype. I wouldn't want to be sitting on those shares when the music stops either.

[keithbvadu2]

8. Has a better use for half his wealth or wants to keep half his wealth? Time to short?

Has a better use for half his wealth or wants to keep half his wealth? Time to short?

When Valuejet hit the swamp, the stock went way down.

So many people shorted it when it was low, it actually tripled from that low point.

Didn't last long but showed dangers of shorting.

[IronLionZion]

9. If the most famous Twitter user is about to go to prison

then it could be a good time to sell high

[Bengus81]

10. He knows that after another year of Trump he can buy back for peanuts....

This guy will make another billion when Trump fully melts down the markets like Bush.IDIOT did in 2007/2008.

[elmac]

11. Lots of insiders are unloading their stock, the gravy train is about to run out of tracks. nt

[ToxMarz]

14. Twitter's best days have never come, neither are they gone

it is what it is.

Could be a useful tool, but it was hijacked by malevolent trolls and narcissistic celebrities.

Maybe it can just become a useful tool when these fools move on.

Maybe Twitter could help expedite and shore up the platform, rather than let the trolls own them.

[Talitha]

15. Who'd he sell it to... Russia?

[Nitram]

16. Diversifying the portfolio is always a good thing. Don't put all your eggs in one basket,

and all that.

[laserhaas]

18. Tell me about it!

Shheesshh - don't I know (now)

[moriah]

17. Okay, I know I'm evil, but my first thought with this headline was...

.... "Yes, I'm sure Evan Williams has contributed to a lot of Tweet activity, but I didn't know they'd bought stock in the company!"

(In my experience, we call that particular brand of whisky "The Villian".)

[melm00se]

19. As I once (and only once) was considered an "insider"

(based upon SEC regulations), let me share a few points:

- to sell (or buy) shares, you must prepare a plan showing when and how many shares you plan act upon.
- this plan must include the number of shares and the price.
- how you came to these numbers must be spelled out.
- the assigned broker executing the trade must be free to determine the exact timing and date(s) for the trade.
- once filed, the insider can have no substantive contact with the broker to avoid disclosing (or appearing to disclose) any "material non-public information" (you can google this).

This is why, if you look at the disclosure documents, you will see insiders trading the same number of shares on or around the same rough dates within their company's fiscal quarters.

I recall one set of insider sales occurring (a couple of hundred shares twice a year over 4 years) when the insider was paying for his kid's college tuition.