When a chief executive buys his own stock, everyone asks the same question: does he think it is cheap? No filing answers that. A narrower question does have an exact answer, and it is the one the paperwork settles: what did the purchase change about what he owns?
On 10 September Dara Khosrowshahi bought 141,000 Uber shares at a weighted average of $70.9642 and paid $10,005,952, filing the Form 4 the same afternoon. Transaction code P, held directly, with no Rule 10b5-1 plan behind it. It was his first open-market purchase since 6 May 2022.
He now holds 1,367,100 shares directly. After the 2022 purchase he held 1,420,968. Both figures are printed on the face of the two filings, and the difference of 53,868 shares runs the wrong way for the reading the trade has been given.
What happened between the two cheques
Every line here comes off a Form 4 he signed, and the column closes exactly.
| Between 6 May 2022 and 10 September 2026 | Shares |
|---|---|
| Held after the 2022 purchase | 1,420,968 |
| Delivered on vesting and option exercises | +4,049,296 |
| Bought under the employee stock purchase plan | +3,248 |
| Withheld to pay tax on vesting | −1,197,412 |
| Sold in the open market | −2,850,000 |
| Gifted | −200,000 |
| Bought on 10 September 2026 | +141,000 |
| Held after the 2026 purchase | 1,367,100 |
Uber put 4,049,296 shares into his hands over those four years, roughly twenty-nine times what he has now bought with his own money. Rather more went out again. Sales alone came to 2,850,000 shares for $202,559,611 — each tranche multiplied by the weighted-average price its filing reports, summed across sixteen sale lines in nine filings, which is our figure and not a disclosed total.
Last September accounts for a fifth of that. He sold 300,000 shares on the 12th and 150,000 on the 22nd, 450,000 in ten days for $43,682,554, under a plan adopted on 7 November 2024 and modified on 13 June 2025. That fortnight raised 4.4 times what he has just put back.
What the 141,000 shares are a share of
- Of his own holding. He held 1,226,100 shares before the trade. 141,000 ÷ 1,226,100 = 11.5%, and the only addition since 2022 he has bought at market.
- Of the company. Uber's latest 10-Q counts 2,042,560,121 shares outstanding on 31 July 2026. 141,000 ÷ 2,042,560,121 = 0.0069%. His whole direct stake is 0.0669%.
- Of his pay. His 2025 salary was $1,083,333 and his total compensation $35,595,826. The cheque is 9.2 times the salary and 28% of the package.
- Of what Uber hands him anyway. The board's target equity award to him for 2025 was $27,000,000, granted every year, or 2.7 times this purchase.
Uber also requires its chief executive to hold stock worth ten times base salary. At the 9 September close of $71.08 his 1,226,100 shares were worth $87,151,188, about eight times the $10.8 million the guideline asks for. Nobody was topping up to clear a bar.
Two facts cut the other way
The 2025 sales were pre-scheduled. A Rule 10b5-1 plan executes on a calendar set months in advance, so those 450,000 shares were not a same-day verdict on anything. This purchase carries no such plan, which makes it the discretionary act of the two, and that is a fair point to make for it.
Direct shares are also not his whole position. At the end of 2025 he held 239,350 unvested restricted shares and 572,218 unearned performance shares, carried in the proxy at $66,313,220 between them, plus options over 1,295,001 shares. An executive whose vested pile shrinks while that book grows has not necessarily reduced his exposure to Uber.
Neither fact moves the level. He adopted the selling plan and then amended it, and the shares left.
Uber's COO paid 6.9% more per share, six days earlier
Andrew Macdonald bought 70,000 shares on 4 September in two tranches, 54,325 at $75.6526 and 15,675 at $76.4425, $5,308,064 at a weighted average of $75.83. Against the CEO's $70.9642 the following week, that is 6.9% more per share.
Proportion is where the two filings really separate. Macdonald went from 356,320 shares to 426,320, up 19.6% against the CEO's 11.5%, and his filings since he became a Section 16 officer in June 2025 show vesting, tax withholding and this purchase. No sales at all. Both men bought within days of 2 September, when Uber told staff it would cut about 3,300 roles, roughly a tenth of the company.
Where 1,420,968 sits now
Uber closed 10 September at $72.56, up 2.08%, which puts the purchase about $225,000 ahead of the price he paid and his direct stake at $99.2 million. The record test from here is his next Form 4: another purchase, or a full year without a sale, would make 1,420,968 a level he is climbing back towards rather than one he has spent four years below.
What the filing establishes is a smaller thing than the reaction to it. Uber's chief executive owns 0.0669% of the company he runs, and after two open-market purchases four years apart he holds fewer shares than he did after the first.
Every share count, price, transaction code and post-transaction holding comes from Forms 4 filed under Dara Khosrowshahi's and Andrew Macdonald's own SEC identifiers, read directly rather than through an insider-transaction aggregator; the 10b5-1 plan dates and the employee stock purchase plan amounts are footnotes on those filings. Salary, total compensation, target equity, outstanding unvested awards and the ten-times-salary ownership guideline are from Uber's 2026 proxy statement, covering 2025. Shares outstanding are the cover-page counts on Uber's 10-Q filings. Sale proceeds, ratios and percentages here are ours, computed from the filed figures. The 2 September restructuring was announced by Uber to staff and reported the same day. Prices are the 9 and 10 September closes.
