We’ve previously written about the unfairness faced by artists on Spotify and how CEO Daniel Ek ensures he is well-compensated. While independent musicians struggle to make a living from their work, Spotify executives reportedly cashed out $1.1 billion in company stock in 2024 – a sum that would require a single artist to achieve an impossible 314 billion streams to earn the equivalent through royalties.

According to the founder of Music Business Worldwide, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek sold 875,000 shares of Spotify stock in November 2024, earning a total of $283 million in just a few days. Even more than Ek, Spotify’s co-founder Martin Lorentzon earned over half a billion dollars – $556.77 million – by selling more than a million shares.
You can find the complete list of stock sales by Spotify executives and board directors here.
As reported by an edm.com at the end of 2023, independent artists would need to achieve 5 million streams annually just to earn the U.S. minimum wage, which equates to $2.95 per 1,000 streams.