More than a dozen women have accused Dan Price, the Seattle-based CEO who rose to fame for announcing he’d raise his employees’ minimum pay to $70,000, of sexual misconduct in a new New York Times report. Their allegations include Price choking them after they rebuffed his advances, recording his partners during sex without their consent, and raping one woman he was dating while she slept.
In a statement to the Times, Price said he had “never physically or sexually abused anyone” and called the allegations “simply false.” On Wednesday, less than a day before the story was published, Price had abruptly stepped down from his role as CEO of Gravity Payments, the company he founded with his brother in 2004. He said he was resigning in order to “focus full time on fighting false accusations against me,” according to a statement he posted on Twitter.
Price was first publicly accused of misconduct earlier this year. In January, the 38-year-old allegedly attempted to forcibly kiss and grab the throat of 26-year-old Shelby Alexandra Hayne following dinner at a restaurant in Seattle. She filed a police report after the incident. In the spring, Price was charged with fourth-degree assault with sexual motivation, fourth-degree assault, and reckless driving. Prosecutors dropped the first charge, but proceeded with a case for reckless driving and assault — both charges to which Price pleaded not guilty. His trial is scheduled for October.
According to the Times, the case motivated Kacie Margis, who says she dated Price for three months in early 2021, to come forward. She told the newspaper their relationship ended after he allegedly raped her while they were together in a Palm Springs, California, hotel that April. Margis says she went to bed after taking an edible for her insomnia and rebuffed Price when he tried to initiate sex, but she alleges he still penetrated her after she began falling asleep. Margis says she confronted him later, only for Price to say no one would believe her. She reported the incident to the police and submitted to a rape kit at the time. On Monday, the Palm Springs police department referred the case to prosecutors and recommended Price be charged with rape of a drugged victim. As of Friday, no charges had been filed.
Other women have alleged they’ve experienced abuse at the hands of Price, including his ex-wife, Kristie Colón. In a 2015 TEDx talk at the University of Kentucky, Colón said she had been abused by her former husband, though she didn’t specifically name Price. His representatives contacted the university to say its contents could be considered defamatory, and Colón’s speech was never broadcast. In an excerpt obtained by the Times, Colón says: “He got mad at me for ignoring him and grabbed me and shook me again. He started punching me in the stomach and slapped me across the face.” She then alleges Price had waterboarded her and body-slammed her in the past.
At the time, Price was riding high on the attention that came with announcing he was cutting his own $1.1 million salary in order to raise his employees’ salaries to a minimum of $70,000. The move was covered internationally, and Inc. Magazine went as far as asking “Is This the Best Boss in America?” in a cover story about Price. Bloomberg later reported on the ex-wife’s domestic-violence allegations, and revealed the minimum-salary story was not as straightforward as it seemed, either. His brother filed a lawsuit before the announcement that argued Price was improperly overpaying himself as CEO.
And yet, over time, Price managed to construct a new narrative and grow his social-media following to hundreds of thousands of followers. He did so by posting about his progressive stances around corporate greed, income inequality, race, women’s rights, and many other social and economic issues. His notoriety led to media hits, political campaign appearances, and speeches. In 2020, former secretary of Labor Robert Reich called him “the one moral CEO in America.” On the heels of the Times report, that reign as king of the viral tech executives appears to have come to an end. Read the whole thing here.
