'Robinhood' Co-Founders Sell Billions in Shares… Board Approves $2 Billion Stock Buyback

Robinhood Markets, Inc. (NASDAQ: HOOD) co-founder and CEO Vladimir Tenev converted 375,000 Class B common shares into Class A shares on April 6 and immediately sold the entire lot under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan, raising approximately $26.1 million (about KRW 380 billion).

Co-founder Baiju Bhatt, through his living trust, converted roughly 57,000 Class B shares into Class A shares on April 16 and sold them all for about $4.95 million (around KRW 70 billion). Regulatory filings note that both executives still directly or indirectly hold tens of millions of Class A shares.

Separately, Robinhood’s board approved a new $1.5 billion share repurchase program (approximately KRW 2.2 trillion), which, together with the remaining authorization under the prior plan, boosts buyback capacity by over $1.1 billion (about KRW 1.6 trillion). The company said it intends to execute repurchases flexibly over the next three years, depending on market conditions.

Robinhood will report its first-quarter 2026 results after U.S. markets close on April 28. The stock has seen increased volatility recently amid the new buyback authorization and shifting earnings expectations.

In addition, after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approved a rule removing the $25,000 minimum equity requirement for pattern day traders, optimism about renewed retail trading activity drove Robinhood’s share price to surge by roughly 10 percent in a single trading session in April.

Headquartered in Menlo Park, California, Robinhood is a U.S. online brokerage and fintech firm that has grown by offering commission-free trading of stocks, ETFs, options and cryptocurrencies via its mobile app. Founded in 2013 by Vladimir Tenev and Baiju Bhatt, Robinhood trades under the ticker HOOD on Nasdaq and was added to the S&P 500 Index in 2025, solidifying its position as a leading platform in the U.S. retail investment market.