Jack Dorsey Gives One-Third of Twitter Stake to Employees

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Jack Dorsey, chief at Twitter and Square.Credit Mike Blake/Reuters

Jack Dorsey, the chief executive of both Twitter and Square, is in a giving mood.

On Thursday evening, he announced at a Twitter staff meeting and on the social network that he would donate one-third of his stake in the company — worth close to $200 million — to the employee stock compensation pool “to reinvest directly in our people.”

“I’d rather have a smaller part of something big than a bigger part of something small,” he wrote in a tweet. “I’m confident we can make Twitter big!”

Although no employee is being given additional stock directly through Mr. Dorsey’s action, the move makes extra stock available for grants and could help prop up morale, which took a hit after he laid off 8 percent of the work force last week.

Last week, Mr. Dorsey disclosed in Square’s paperwork for an initial public offering that he would donate 40 million shares of that company, or 10 percent of the total stock outstanding, to the Start Small Foundation. Those shares, on top of 15 million shares he had already donated to the foundation, are intended to be sold to Square customers to raise money to help artists, musicians and local businesses.

He used identical language at that time to describe his planned donation of Square stock, which would be worth about $600 million based on the last round of private funding raised by the company: “I’d rather have a smaller part of something big than a bigger part of something small. We intend to make this big!”