All employees should receive stock awards

Billionaire Mark Cuban believes that stock options should not be reserved for the C-suite and that “all employees” should have a stake in their company’s success.

on sunday, cuba Wrote in a post on X According to a report, this is why the wealth of billionaires has increased by $33 trillion since 2015. oxfam report Published in June, that’s because “the stock market has gone straight up.”

“You know who’s funding the surge, especially lately? Retail investors. 401ks,” Cuban wrote on Twitter.

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Cuban is advocating a system where stock awards are given as the same percentage of salary in the company – if a CEO gets a stock award equal to 100% of their salary, every employee in the company will also get stock options equal to 100% of their own salary.

including many tech giants Apple, sales force, AdobeAnd TeslaAlready allow your employees to purchase stock at a discount. However, these companies have limits on how much employees can contribute – and executives still receive a higher percentage of shares relative to their pay.

For example, Apple Allows employees to purchase stock at a 15% discount. Employees can contribute 10% of their salary or a maximum of $21,250 per year.

Meanwhile, about 78% of Apple CEO Tim Cook’s pay last year came from stock awards. The stock contributed $58.1 million to Cook’s total salary of $74.6 million in 2024, making him the frontrunner. Fifth highest paid CEO In the United States.

according to JP Morgan Workplace SolutionsGiving employees stock options benefits workers with an owner mentality because they have a stake in the company. Stock options can also improve employee morale if the company performs well.

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Cuban has long argued that companies should give employees stock options. In 2020, Cuba said “it is workingPodcast that businesses will “get more from your employees, and they’ll be more committed, if you share the equity in a meaningful way right away, so everyone thrives.”

Cuban also has a track record of sharing wealth with its employees, though usually through cash bonuses rather than traditional stock options.

“In every business I’ve sold, I’ve paid every employee a bonus for more than a year,” Cuban wrote. in a post on x Last year.

When he sold his first company, a software firm called MicroSolutions, to CompuServe for $6 million in 1990, Cuban took 20% of the total sale price and paid it off Gave 80 of its employees a bonus of $15,000 each.

Later, when Cuba sold Their streaming business, Broadcast.com, was sold to Yahoo for $5.7 billion in 1999, more than 90% Due to bonus many employees of the company became millionaires.

cuba was worth $9.1 billion At the time of writing, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

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Billionaire Mark Cuban believes that stock options should not be reserved for the C-suite and that “all employees” should have a stake in their company’s success.

on sunday, cuba Wrote in a post on X According to a report, this is why the wealth of billionaires has increased by $33 trillion since 2015. oxfam report Published in June, that’s because “the stock market has gone straight up.”

“You know who’s funding the surge, especially lately? Retail investors. 401ks,” Cuban wrote on Twitter.