Spotify founder Daniel Ek has now sold $666 million in stocks
Spotify founder Daniel Ek has sold more stocks in the company, which brings the total of stocks he has sold to $666 million.
According to Music Business Worldwide, on February 19th, Ek sold another 50,000 shares, earning him $31.5 million. The Swedish tech mogul made the move just days after Spotify’s stock reached an all-time high of $648.32.
As a result of the recent surge in the stock price, the market capitalisation for Spotify now stands at $129 billion, which is a 164 per cent increase within the last 12 months.
Since July 2023, Ek has been frequently selling stock which began with a $100 million sale. A few months later, in October of the same year, he sold $64.2 million’s worth. Ek’s biggest individual stock sale came in April 2024 when he sold $118.8 million in stock.
Within the last 12 months alone, Ek has sold shares on 12 separate occasions, each generating a minimum of $27.2 million for the businessman.
Meanwhile, at the end of January, Spotify’s vice president and head of music, David Kaefer, revealed the Swedish streaming platform paid $10 billion to the music industry in 2024.
Reflecting on the past decade, Kaefer said of Spotify’s growth during that period: “In 2014, the music industry reached a low point when global recorded music revenues hit $13 billion. Spotify’s annual contribution at the time was around $1 billion, with around 15 million paying subscribers. In 2024, Spotify alone paid out a record $10 billion to the music industry — totaling nearly $60 billion since our founding.”
Kaefer also claimed that Spotify has democratised the music industry and has made it a more equal playing field for artists, stating, “Payments to the music industry have shifted from a concentrated few at the top to an increasingly diverse and growing ecosystem of artists finding success. Case in point, we estimate that, in 2014, around 10,000 artists generated at least $10,000 per year on Spotify. Today, well over 10,000 artists generate over $100,000 per year from Spotify alone. That’s a beautiful thing.”
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