Opendoor co-founders Keith Rabois and Eric Wu are returning to the company’s board, marking a significant win for retail investors who have been advocating for changes for months.
Opendoor Technologies shares rallied nearly 40% in extended trading on Wednesday following the company’s appointment of a new CEO and co-founders to its board.
Opendoor named Kaz Nejatian, chief operating officer at Shopify, to the role. An exchange filing from Shopify stated that Nejatian’s last day at the firm is Friday. Nejatian spent six years at Shopify, overseeing the company’s product division in Canada.
If the after-hours gains hold in the next session, Opendoor would have a market cap of about $6 billion, up from less than $400 million less than three months ago.
Keith Rabois and Eric Wu, who co-founded Opendoor in 2013, are rejoining the company’s board of directors, effective immediately. Rabois, who will now be the board chair, called Nejatian a “decisive leader who has driven product innovation at scale, ruthlessly reduced G&A expenses to drive profitability and deeply understands the potential for AI to radically reshape a company’s entire operations.”
“He is the right leader to unlock Opendoor’s unique data and assets as we build on Opendoor’s original mission, now enhanced as an AI-first company. The future of home buying and selling is now in the chat.”
The executives “will inject the ‘founder DNA’ and energy at a pivotal moment for Opendoor,” board member Eric Feder said in a statement.
Rabois is a partner at Khosla Ventures. Wu served as CEO of Opendoor until stepping down in 2023.
The appointments are a significant win for EMJ Capital’s Eric Jackson and retail investors, who have been advocating for the changes for months. Pressure from investors had led to the resignation of Opendoor CEO Carrie Wheeler last month.
The stock has become a retail favourite, gaining nearly 1,000% since the start of July. A Stocktwits poll indicates that nearly 60% of retail investors are currently long the stock.
As of late Wednesday, retail sentiment for the stock climbed a few notches higher in the ‘extremely bullish’ zone (82/100), with OPEN featuring as the top trending ticker.
At the same time, short interest in the stock has risen to 21%, the highest to date.
Opendoor shares are up 266% year-to-date.
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