Opendoor CEO Carrie Wheeler said Friday that she’s resigning from the online real estate company, which has seen a surge in recent interest from retail investors. The stock popped early in the day before closing up 4.3%.
Pressure began building on Wheeler, who took over the top job in 2022, after the company’s quarterly earnings report earlier this month failed to reassure investors that a turnaround is underway. The stock is up more than sixfold since bottoming out at 51 cents in June, a price that put the company at risk of being delisted from the Nasdaq.
“The last weeks of intense outside interest in Opendoor have come at a time when the company needs to stay focused and charging ahead,” Wheeler wrote in a post on X. “I believe the best thing I can do for Opendoor now is to accelerate my succession plans that I shared with the Board mid-year and make room for new leadership to take the reins.”
Opendoor’s business involves using technology to buy and sell homes, pocketing the gains. In its latest earnings report, Opendoor said it expects to acquire just 1,200 homes in the third quarter, down from 1,757 in the second quarter and 3,504 in the third quarter of 2024. It’s also pulling down marketing spending.
Hedge fund manager Eric Jackson, who spearheaded Opendoor’s stock jump in July, celebrated the news and told his new band of followers on X, “Let’s start THINKING BIG AGAIN.” Jackson said last month on X that his firm had taken a stake in the company and was betting it would be a “100-bagger over the next few years.”
Jackson has been a loud voice on X pushing for Wheeler’s departure, and was recently joined by Opendoor co-founder and venture capitalist Keith Rabois, who posted on Aug. 13 that “not a single founder nor executive” who guided the company to its IPO supports Wheeler as CEO.
Opendoor on Friday named technology chief Shrisha Radhakrishna as “president and interim leader” and said a CEO search is underway.
Opendoor went public through a special purpose acquisition company in 2020, riding a SPAC wave supported by low interest rates and Covid-era market euphoria. The soaring inflation and rising interest rates that followed hit all of technology stocks, but had an outsized impact on Opendoor due it its direct exposure to mortgage rates.
The company lost 99% of its value from early 2021 through its trough in June. With Friday’s gains, its market cap stands at about $2.5 billion.
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opendoor year-to-date stock chart.