Dan Price, the CEO known to have cut his own salary to $70,000 while raising the minimum wage at Gravity Payments, has resigned while he faces charges of allegedly assaulting a 26-year-old woman.
Price, 38, announced his exit in a statement shared on Twitter, saying that longtime Gravity Payments COO Tammi Kroll would replace him as the firm’s top executive.
“My number one priority is getting our people to work for the best company in the world, but being here has become a distraction,” Price said. “I must also step away from these duties to fully focus on combating false allegations being leveled at me. I do not go anywhere.”
Dan Price once cut his own wages to $70,000 to raise the minimum wage at his company.Twitter/Dan Price
Earlier this year, Seattle prosecutors charged Price with assault and reckless driving after he allegedly tried to kiss the woman after a business meeting and then grabbed her throat when she rebuffed his advances.
After the alleged altercation, Price allegedly pulled into a parking lot and performed “donuts” in his Tesla while she was still in the car, according to the Seattle Times. Price pleaded not guilty to the charges in May and has denied any wrongdoing.
Dan Price has pleaded not guilty and has denied wrongdoing.FilmMagic
Dan Price has built a cult following on social media and defends workers’ rights. TNS via Getty Images
“Mr. Price respects the legal process and is confident that he will be vindicated in court,” an attorney for the executive told the outlet earlier this year.
Price garnered widespread attention in 2015 after publicly announcing that he would be cutting his own salary from $1 million to $70,000. The tech CEO said the money would help fund an initiative to raise Gravity Payments’ minimum wage from $48,000 to $70,000 over three years.
In an interview with CBS News at the time, Price called his decision a “sacrifice.”
“I’m so happy with how people’s lives are changing because they deserve it, and they deserve every penny of it,” Price said. “For short-term sacrifice, I’d rather have this than a vacation home in Palm Springs or the Hamptons. I guarantee it will pay off.”
Since then, Price has positioned himself as an outspoken advocate for workers’ rights and has built a social media cult following of nearly 800,000 followers on LinkedIn. His posts, in which he tears up company leaders while calling for improved pay and benefits for employees, regularly go viral.
In August, Price responded to The Post’s tweet about writer Malcolm Gladwell’s criticism of remote work by promoting Gravity’s politics.
Dan Price has faced legal drama and allegations of misconduct in the past. MediaNews Group via Getty Images
“I am the CEO of a company that went remote two years ago. Last year we had the highest turnover and the lowest employee turnover in our history (in 19 years). In addition, we had about 300 applications per vacancy,” he tweeted.
But the ex-boss of Gravity Payments has faced legal scrutiny as well as allegations of misconduct in his personal life over the years.
Price’s initiative to raise the minimum wage at the company came around the same time his older brother Lucas was in court accusing him of overpaying himself and violating his rights as a minority shareholder in the company. The court later ruled in favor of Dan Price.
I am the CEO of a company that went remote two years ago. Last year we had the highest turnover and the lowest employee turnover in our history (in 19 years). In addition, we had about 300 applications per job offer.
— Dan Price (@DanPriceSeattle) August 8, 2022
In 2015, Bloomberg reported that Price’s ex-wife, Kristie Colon, gave a TEDx talk in which, without naming Price, she claimed he physically assaulted her.
Colon described how she once locked herself in her car because she was “afraid he was going to ram me into the ground again or splash water on me in our upstairs bathroom like he had done before.”
Price later told Bloomberg that the incidents “never happened.”