Workday Co-Founder Sells Shares Worth Hundreds of Millions

On June 1, 4 and 9, David A. Duffield, co-founder of U.S. cloud-based HR and financial software company Workday, Inc. (WDAY), converted Class B common shares held in a trust he manages into Class A common shares and, under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan, sold roughly 320,000 shares in three open-market transactions. In the June 4 and June 9 trades alone, he realized about $16.2 million (approximately KRW 22 billion) and $14.8 million (approximately KRW 20 billion), respectively, while the trust’s remaining stake still totals several tens of millions of shares, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

At its developer event in Las Vegas in June, Workday unveiled new development tools that enable the creation, integration and validation of AI agents for HR and finance on its platform. The company also announced an expanded strategic partnership with Google Cloud on AI agents and a data-cloud integration with AWS. Meanwhile, in California, Workday sought once again to dismiss a lawsuit alleging that its AI-powered recruiting solution discriminates against job applicants, but recent court signals suggest the motion may be denied, underscoring ongoing legal challenges surrounding AI usage.

Founded in 2005, Workday is a U.S. SaaS provider delivering cloud software for HR and financial management to organizations worldwide. It has since broadened its enterprise platform to include AI agent management alongside workforce and finance. Duffield, who previously founded PeopleSoft, remains a major stakeholder and central figure at Workday, and his periodic equity transactions continue to attract market attention.