Peter Thiel, co-founder of data analytics group Palantir, sold $175 million in shares this month, according to US regulatory disclosures. Photograph: Andrew White/The New York TimesPeter Thiel, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg are leading a parade of corporate insiders who have sold hundreds of millions of dollars of their companies’ shares this quarter, in a signal that recent stock market exuberance could be peaking.
But analysts still said this season’s spree has been surprising and an indicator that a recent tech bull run, fuelled by excitement over the rise of generative artificial intelligence, is about to wane.“If they think that we’re at the top and so they’re getting out, that’s a rather stark signal to everyone else,” said Charles Elson, a legal veteran and chair of corporate governance at the University of Delaware.
Mr Zuckerberg, Meta’s chief executive, has sold millions of dollars of the company’s shares for years. But he has increased selling this year as its stock hit all-time highs. In early February, he sold 291,000 shares for $135 million, his first sale of that size since November 2021. He still has 13.5 per cent of the company’s outstanding shares, which makes him its largest shareholder.
“Clearly there’s an appetite for liquidity generation right now,” Mr Silverman said. “Some of that is some pent-up demand following relatively quiet insider selling in 2022 and 2023, and certainly one impetus is market performance.”