Zuckerberg, Dorsey And 18 Other Billionaires Lead Massive Stock Sales

It’s been an incredible run for U.S. stocks over the past six months. The S&P 500 has surged 28% in that time, setting new record highs every month, with investors optimistic about the return to normalcy as more Americans get the Covid-19 vaccine. Such exuberance helped billionaires’ worldwide wealth grow by an astonishing $5 trillion since the early days of the pandemic in March 2020.

But is it the beginning of the end? An E-Trade survey of 957 active investors earlier this month revealed that 69% of the respondents thought the market was in a bubble. 

Certainly plenty of investors have been cashing in, including some of the nation’s richest. Based on an analysis by Forbes, the biggest billionaire seller in recent months is Ernest Garcia II, the largest individual shareholder of used car e-commerce company Carvana. Garcia, who was convicted of criminal fraud in 1990 stemming from his small role in Charles Keating’s Lincoln Savings & Loan scandal, trimmed his stake every day for 73 trading days straight and unloaded $1.8 billion worth of shares since November.

As a percentage of their fortunes, venture capitalist and financier Chamath Palihapitiya is the largest liquidator since November after divesting his entire personal stake in Virgin Galactic for pre-tax proceeds of $311 million, about one-fourth of his $1.2 billion net worth.

Garcia and Palihapitiya are among 20 U.S. billionaires who sold a combined $8.7 billion in stock in the last six months. Some have sold as part of Rule 10b5-1 trading plans, which allow insiders to sell shares in companies on a predetermined schedule. Others have simply offloaded huge chunks of their stock on the open market. All of them sold at least $100 million worth of stock (pre-tax) between November 1, 2020 and April 22, 2021; three have sold more than $1 billion worth apiece. Net worths are as of April 28. Forbes reached out to representatives for each of these billionaires for comment.

1. Ernest Garcia II

Net worth: $17.4 billion

Sales since November: $1.80 billion

Garcia is the biggest shareholder of Carvana, the used car business founded by his son Ernest Garcia III. Its shares have ballooned tenfold since March 2020, helping the elder Garcia’s fortune rise from $2.4 billion to $15.9 billion in one year. He has sold shares almost every day for the last six months in accordance with a trading plan he established with his wife on June 15, 2020, after shares had already quadrupled in a three-month span. Garcia II, who’s 64, does not work at Carvana or hold a board seat; he currently owns about 30% of Carvana shares.

2. Mark Zuckerberg

Net worth: $111 billion

Sales since November: $1.63 billion

Facebook’s founder regularly sells shares that he’s transferred to the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, an advocacy, investment and philanthropic organization he and his wife Priscilla Chan founded in 2015 to support  causes such as education and science worldwide. Most of the $1.6 billion in sales of Facebook shares since November 2020 have been by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. 

3. Leonard Lauder

Net worth: $26.9 billion

Sales since November: $1.05 billion

LAL Family Partners L.P., owned by the family of the longtime former chairman and CEO of cosmetics giant Estée Lauder, sold two batches of two million shares each in November 2020 and March 2021. Estée Lauder stock has more than doubled since March 2020, and the sales make up a small piece of Leonard Lauder’s $24 billion stake in the company. His younger brother Ronald Lauder separately sold $108 million of his own stock in the same time period.

4. Jack Dorsey

Net worth: $14.2 billion

Sales since November: $529 million

Dorsey is the cofounder and CEO of two large public companies, Twitter and Square, though his Square stock makes up the majority of his fortune. He has been selling 100,000 shares of payments firm Square every week (a small sliver of his 49.2 million shares) but does not touch his Twitter stake. He now owns an 11% stake in Square.

5. Anthony Wood

Net worth: $7.2 billion

Sales since November: $342 million

Shares of Roku, the video streaming service Wood founded in 2002, have surged almost 400% since March 2020, with viewers spending more time at home in front of the TV during the pandemic. Wood regularly exercises stock options given as part of his CEO compensation that are set to expire in July 2022 and then sells them at a profit—his cost of exercising the options is not included in the $342 million in pretax proceeds from his sales since November. Wood still owns a 15% stake in Roku.

6. Reed Hastings

Net worth: $5 billion

Sales since November: $334 million

Netflix’s stock has lagged since peaking last July, and Hastings, the founder and CEO of the entertainment streaming firm, hasn’t sold any shares in 2021. He exercised options and sold shares in every month of 2020, including $334 million in pretax sales in November and December.

7. Chamath Palihapitiya

Net worth: $1.2 billion

Sales since November: $311 million

Palihapitiya, the outspoken venture capitalist who has facilitated IPOs for three startups via SPAC mergers, divested his personal stake of ten million shares in Virgin Galactic in two installments in December and March. In a statement in March, he said the sale would finance “a large investment I am making towards fighting climate change.” He also tweeted, “I hated to do it but my balance sheet shrunk by almost $2B this week. NB: I have not sold any shares of any other SPAC I’ve launched.”

8. Brian Armstrong

Net worth: $11 billion

Sales since November: $292 million

Armstrong is CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase Global, which went public in mid April. In a traditional IPO, executives typically aren’t permitted to sell shares during a predetermined lockup period, but since Coinbase went public in a direct listing, insiders were free to sell their existing shares directly to investors. Armstrong, who is also Coinbase’s cofounder, sold about 2% of his shares on the day of the direct listing for $292 million pre-tax.

9. Jim McKelvey

Net worth: $4.1 billion

Sales since November: $278 million

McKelvey, who cofounded Square with Jack Dorsey in 2009 and still sits on its board and owns a nearly 3.5% stake, has sold some of his shares of the payments company every month since August 2020. Square shares have risen by more than 500% since March 2020.

10. Alexis Lê-Quôc

Net worth: $2.1 billion

Sales since November: $247 million

Lê-Quôc, Datadog’s cofounder and chief technology officer, sells shares at the beginning of every month in accordance with a scheduled trading plan. The cloud monitoring company soared in value during the early months of the pandemic, but its shares are down 22% from their peak in February. Datadog CEO Olivier Pomel, a French citizen, has sold shares worth $215 million in the last six months.

11. David Duffield

Net worth: $14.7 billion

Sales since November: $245 million

Duffield has sold about $200 million of Workday shares since November on a predetermined schedule, and his foundation has sold shares worth an additional $45 million. On April 1, Duffield resigned as chairman of Workday, the human resources software company he cofounded at age 64 in 2005. He’s the company’s largest individual shareholder, with a 20% stake.

12. Eric Yuan

Net worth: $14.6 billion

Sales since November: $238 million

Zoom was one of the breakout stars of the pandemic, but its stock has retreated 40% since October. Yuan, its founder and CEO, regularly sells shares pursuant to a scheduled plan, though his sales still make up a small fraction of his $14 billion stake in the company.

13. Alexander Karp

Net worth: $2.1 billion

Sales since November: $232 million

Karp took his data mining firm Palantir Technologies public last September and has exercised options and sold shares every month since then. Palantir shares quadrupled in their first four months but have declined by almost 40% since late January.

14. Fred Ehrsam

Net worth: $3.8 billion

Sales since November: $214 million

Brian Armstrong’s cofounder Ehrsam has also been an active seller since cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase’s direct listing two weeks ago, unloading about 5% of his stake in the company in several batches of sales.

15. Andrew Paradise

Net worth: $1.6 billion

Sales since November: $196 million

Paradise’s mobile gaming company Skillz went public via a SPAC merger in December 2020, and the stock rose 140% within its first two months of trading before losing those gains in the last two months. Paradise sold 8.4 million shares—about 10% of his stake—on March 23. In response to the sale, a company spokesperson said he is Skillz’s largest shareholder and “he has the most incentives out of any Skillz investor in realizing the long-term success of the company.”

16. Les Wexner

Net worth: $6.6 billion

Sales since November: $178 million

Victoria’s Secret parent L Brands, founded by Wexner nearly 60 years ago, began to recover from a yearslong decline in value last year as its stock rose sixfold, and Wexner cashed in on March 22, selling three million shares from trusts he controls. Wexner stepped down as chairman and CEO last May and will also leave L Brands’ board next month

17. Ben Silbermann

Net worth: $3.8 billion

Sales since November: $168 million

Silbermann, cofounder and CEO of Pinterest, regularly exercised options and unloaded 2.5 million shares of the photo bookmarking site from November to January. Pinterest’s stock rose by 250% in 2020.

18. Steven Sarowitz

Net worth: $2.9 billion

Sales since November: $153 million

Paylocity founder and chairman Sarowitz sold 400,000 shares worth $72 million on December 11 separate from his Rule 10b5-1, which scheduled the rest of his sales in smaller increments. He still owns more than 12.5 million shares of the payroll provider’s stock.

19. Jim Koch

Net worth: $3.6 billion

Sales since November: $121 million

Boston Beer stock’s four-year rally accelerated during the pandemic, as shares are up 300% since March 2020 and up tenfold since 2017. Koch has regularly sold shares for years, but hasn’t sold any since December. He owns close to 20% of the company he cofounded in 1984 best known for making Samuel Adams beer. Sales of the company’s hard seltzer and spiked iced tea have taken off.

20. Jayshree Ullal

Net worth: $1.5 billion

Sales since November: $108 million

One of just 23 self-made women billionaires in the U.S., Ullal sells shares of Arista Networks in small increments several times a month on a scheduled plan. She has been the president and CEO of the cloud networking company since 2008, and its shares have risen by 54% since the beginning of November.

—With assistance from Andrea Murphy.