Gravity Payments CEO Steps Down Due To Damning Allegations
Gravity Payments CEO Dan Price has stepped down from the company as a result of serious allegations coming to light.
This article is more than 2 years old
Gravity Payments CEO Dan Price has stepped down. His decision to do so came following severe sexual assault allegations. The CEO is best known for slashing his salary to provide every Gravity Payments employee with a base salary equal to $70,000 annually.
The scathing allegations that put Gravity Payments CEO Dan Price at the forefront of severe sexual misconduct and abuse were first reported by The New York Times. According to the Times, Price’s purported activities date back to 2015. What’s more disturbing than how far back Price’s misconduct dates is that he was able to hide his misdoings by creating a well-concocted social media facade. A facade that, in public perception, made the former CEO look like a progressive altruistic do-gooder.
Ryan Pirkle, who was the former head of marketing at Gravity Payments, told The New York Times that “Social allows [Price] to control the narrative.” For instance, the Gravity Payments CEO was known for posting commentary like “Lifting someone out of poverty is the most effective anti-depressant in the world.” Or, perhaps in fitting irony Price had once posted on his LinkedIn, “In the unlikely event that you are falsely accused, remember that it will be much easier for you to overcome false allegations than it will be for actual victims to overcome the trauma of harassment or assault.”
The recent accusations that prompted Dan Price to ultimately step down as Gravity Payments CEO come out of relationships that he had with women whom he courted online. One victim, Kacie Margis, said that what started as a fairytale-like courtship ended with her being drugged and raped by Price. Margis detailed that prior to getting involved with Price she only knew him as the seemingly altruistic CEO with whom she agreed with the progressive sentiments he put out on his social platforms.
Unfortunately, Margis was unaware of previous claims of abuse made by the Gravity Payments CEO’s ex-wife. In 2015, Dan Price’s ex-wife Kristie Colón gave a revealing TEDx talk at the University of Kentucky. In the talk, she went into vivid detail about the abuse she endured while being married to price. “He started punching me in the stomach and slapped me across the face,” Colón said when reading from her journal. In the journal, she wrote that he grabbed her and shook her. She wrote that she was “afraid he was going to body-slam me into the ground again or waterboard me in our upstairs bathroom like he had done before.” Colón’s harrowing testimony came after Price has stated publicly that their breakup was mutual and friendly. The TEDx talk, obtained by The New York Times, was never before publicly released at the request of Price.
Price had done a great job of covering up and burying his prior demons. And he did so all with the help of social media. Not only that, but his exploits were so effective that he had been able to masquerade as this “too good to be true” boss and person. However, the allegations to arise in light of Price’s purported misconduct speak to the old cliche, “If it’s too good to be true then it probably is.” Still, at this point, it is uncertain if Price will face any legal consequences as a result of his alleged actions. To date, he is explicitly maintaining his innocence. “I trust the legal process, and I am looking forward to presenting my defense and proving my innocence,” said the former Gravity Payments CEO in a statement.
