Draftkings CEO Spouts Off At Investors Selling Stock – After Selling $97.2 Million In Shares Himself
Twitter, by all accounts, can be good or bad when it comes to markets. When it comes to the latest in breaking news, undoubtedly, its the best platform out there. But when it comes to executives putting their foot in their mouths, well, its also the best platform out there.
Typically, this is where we would dunk on Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) CEO Elon Musk, who has had plenty of mishaps related to the platform, such as the infamous “funding secured” tweet some years ago. Another frontrunner for the category is Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase Global (NASDAQ: COIN), whom infamously had the Securities and Exchange Commission of all agencies troll him for his stupid remarks.
He’s also the one that recently tried to claim his team came up with the firms SuperBowl ad without an outside ad agency – only for his Chief Marketing Officer to walk back the statement after being challenged, stating that Armstrong “actually thought we were a single team when presenting work” when referring to their advertising partner.
But today, we have a new contestant for the category.
It appears that Jason Robins, CEO of Draftkings Inc (NASDAQ: DKNG) is wanting to join the fray of embarrassing Twitter takes from public company executives. Robins earlier this week tweeted, “If you sold #DKNG today, just be aware that my team and I are on a mission to make you regret that decision more than any other decision you’ve ever made in your life.“
The failure of the use of a proper cashtag aside, Robins evidently forgot that as the current big chief of Draftkings, his trades are public information – as are his fellow executives.
First, here’s the recent transactions by members of the firms management, including the President of Draftkings’ North American operations, Mathew Kalish. Note the ratio of buys to sell. A number of the sales were attributed to “tax withholding obligations,” however the timing of the most recent transactions in relation to Robins’ tweet is humourous, if nothing else.
Perhaps more importantly however, here is the transaction history for Robins himself over the course of the last year.
Over the course of the last year, Robins has sold a total of 2.0 million shares on the markets, while collecting gross proceeds of $97,171,158 in the process – yes, that’s nearly $100 million. Comparatively, he has purchased just over 1.0 million in common shares, which was done through option exercises, with the highest average price of any one transaction being just $3.82 per share – a level much lower than any retail investor has been able to purchase at. The result, is he had outflows of just $3,647,094 from such exercises.
On a combined basis, Robins has seen net gains of $93,524,064 from his transactions in Draftkings stock over the course of the last twelve months. The figure doesn’t include the $70.0 million in gross sales conducted the year prior.
These share sales, of course, occurred at much higher prices, prior to the equity cratering below the $40 mark in mid-November. The firms downslide finally slowed at the tail end of January, closing as low as $19.32 on the 25th. After staying steady the last several weeks, the equity began a downslide again on March 2, hitting a low of $16.89 on Monday, at which time Robins put out his angry tweet, blaming sellers for his share price performance rather than his own actions.
Evidently it appears Robins is his own worst enemy.
Information for this briefing was found via Edgar, Twitter, Finviz and the companies mentioned. The author has no securities or affiliations related to this organization. Not a recommendation to buy or sell. Always do additional research and consult a professional before purchasing a security. The author holds no licenses.
As the founder of The Deep Dive, Jay is focused on all aspects of the firm. This includes operations, as well as acting as the primary writer for The Deep Dive’s stock analysis. In addition to The Deep Dive, Jay performs freelance writing for a number of firms and has been published on Stockhouse.com and CannaInvestor Magazine among others.
It is going up I will take that bet