After laying off more than 300 workers, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey is trying to lift the spirits of the remaining employees by giving them 6.8 million shares of the stock he owns in the online messaging service.
Dorsey is giving up the stock, worth more than $200 million, so Twitter can award the shares to its employees, according to documents filed Friday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The gesture comes a week after Dorsey laid off 8 percent of Twitter’s workforce to make the company profitable for the first time in its nine-year history. The gift represents nearly one-third of the stock Dorsey owns in the San Francisco company.
“I’d rather have a smaller part of something big than a bigger part of something small,” Dorsey tweeted about surrendering some of his stock. “I’m confident we can make Twitter big!”
The shares have declined by 40 percent in the past six months amid concerns about Twitter’s slowing user growth and inability to make money.
