The Chief Executive Officer of Whole Foods, John Mackey, has been posting on internet message boards, promoting his company’s stock (example) and pointing out the faults of others in the same category (example).
I find it unlikely that a few messages affected the stock’s price to a significant degree, but that’s not the point.
Is posting on message boards part of the job for the CEO of a large corporation? Personally, I don’t think so. There should be more important matters for him to attend to. At the very least, he should have disclosed his relationship with the company in his posts. Doing so would inform unsuspecting readers of his access to insider information and his particular biased point of view.
Not only does Mackey spend time on the message boards, he also keeps a blog and finds more time to argue with his commenters.
If the CEO of the company for which I work was spending his time posting anonymously on message boards, I’d be questioning the millions of dollars he’s getting paid in salary and stock to do so.
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
i have been reading the wsj articles on the situation before & after this latest revelation. i agree and believe he exhibited extremely poor judgement as with some other things lately….
btw, he slashed his salary to one dollar beginning last january.
he should be hung out to dry. it was at best a conflict of interest in writing comments like he did. at worst one could see it as an attempt to manipulate stock prices of a company they were trying to obtain. besides, if you have something to say, then do so in your own name. many CEOs do.
ib, yeah he did, and he said he wouldn’t take any other cash compensation either. the operative phrase being “cash compensation”. this still means stocks and stock options, which would be worth far more than the salary he was making. additionally, in Feb 2007 the board agreed to increase the salary cap to increase compensation ability.