New Delhi: The short-seller Hindenburg Research in its latest report has alleged Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey’s payment company Block (erstwhile known as Square Inc.) for “facilitating fraud against consumers and government, avoiding regulation, dressing up predatory loans and misleading investors”. has targeted Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey’s payment app Block The company Block’s shares tank by over 18% after short-seller Hindenburg Research announced the payment company was its latest short position.
The report also alleged that Block Chief Operating Officer Amrita Ahuja dumped millions of dollars in stocks during the pandemic as the firm’s stock soared on the back of its facilitation of fraud.
"As Block’s stock soared on the back of its facilitation of fraud, co-founders Jack Dorsey and James McKelvey collectively sold over $1 billion of stock during the pandemic. Other executives, including CFO Amrita Ahuja and the lead manager for Cash App Brian Grassadonia, also dumped millions of dollars in stock," the report mentioned.
Who Is Amrita Ahuja?
According to her Linkedin Profile, Indian-origin Amrita Ahuja is currently the chief operating officer of fin-tech Block. She promoted on the post 2 months back after holding chief financial officer post since January 2019. She is also the member of board of directors in companies Discord and Airbnb.
Ahuja started her career in 2001 as Analyst and Investment banker in Morgan Stanley where she worked over 1 year. After that, she joined Walt Disney Company as senior analyst in Strategic planning. Her tenure in Activision Blizzard spanned over 5 years where she retained several positions including Vice President in Business Development, Finance and Operations and Investor Relations.
She completed her graduation from Duke University in Economics and MBA from Harvard Business School.
What is Jack Dorsey’s fin-tech Block?
Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey started the payment company with the name of Square back then in 2009 with the disruptive idea: a tiny card reader that could plug into a smartphone’s headphone jack to easily enable to make the credit card payments between payers and vendors.
“In 2013, a month following PayPal’s acquisition of Venmo, Block launched Square Cash, later rebranded Cash App. It aimed to compete with Venmo by providing financial services to consumers, starting with a peer-to-peer mobile app where users could send and receive money,” the report mentioned.
“In 2017, Block expanded toward more traditional banking by introducing the “Cash Card,” a prepaid debit card allowing users to transact outside of their virtual Cash App wallet. In 2018, following bitcoin’s spike in price and popularity, Cash App allowed users to move funds in their Cash App wallet into Bitcoin,”it added.
