Everyone knew that there was a lot of money to be made when Twitter went public, but what Twitter opened at on the New York Stock Exchange far exceeded the company’s expectations.
So what does this mean for Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and others? Cha-ching! Thanks to Twitter, Dorsey has now been elevated to billionaire status.
just setting up our $twtr https://t.co/OqQRtzaw9v
— Jack Dorsey (@jack) November 7, 2013
Dorsey, a St. Louis, Missouri native, was expected to make some big bucks after it was speculated that Twitter would start trading at $26 on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Instead, Twitter (TWTR) opened at $45.10. Twitter was worth around $18 million before going public. The current trading price makes the company worth right at $32 billion and makes its stockholders a whole lot richer than originally anticipated.
Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey is now a billionaire thanks to his Twitter stock alone. If Dorsey were to dump his 23,411,350 shares right now at $45.81 per share, he would make around $1.07 billion. It has been estimated that around 70 million shares will be sold in the IPO. Check out Dorsey’s tweet below after the Twitter IPO ship set sail–he certainly has a few darn good reasons for his enthusiasm!
A thank you and congratulations to @dickc, @mgupta, @vijaya, @gabrielstricker, and the @Twitter team! $TWTR
— Jack Dorsey (@jack) November 7, 2013
Dorsey is also the CEO and founder of Square, a company that accepts mobile credit card payments. Technically, Dorsey was already worth a billion before today if you count what his Square stock would have sold for on the secondary market. But, that’s a lot less exciting than “Man Becomes a Billionaire In One Day!”
Considering how quickly Square is growing, there is some speculation that Dorsey will make that company public in 2014, which could very well make him a billionaire a second time over.