Spanx founder gives employees $10,000, 2 first-class plane tickets

ATLANTA — The CEO and founder of Spanx surprised employees last week with a pair of first-class plane tickets and $10,000 each to celebrate a $1.2 billion deal with the investment firm Blackstone.

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Sara Blakely shared video Thursday on Instagram showing her employees reacting as she announced the unexpected gifts. She first teased the announcement by spinning a globe.

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“Why am I spinning a globe?” she asked in a sing-song voice. “I’m spinning a globe because to celebrate this moment, I have bought each of you two first-class tickets to anywhere in the world.”

Employees could be heard cheering, and some appeared to cry in response to the announcement.

“You know,” Blakely added. “If you go on a trip, you might want to go out to a really nice dinner. You might want to go out to a really nice hotel. So, with everybody’s two first-class tickets to anywhere in the world, you are each getting $10,000.”

Last week, Blackstone announced it was buying a majority stake in Spanx, with Blakely continuing to run the company’s daily operations alongside her exiting senior management team. At closing, Blakely will become executive chairwoman of the company.

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Blakely founded Spanx in 2000 in Atlanta with $5,000 she earned from selling fax machines in her hometown, Clearwater, Florida, according to WSB-TV and The Wall Street Journal.

“When I started the company in Virginia Highlands on the white board in my room, I wrote a goal down and I said, ‘This company will one day … be worth $20 million,” she said in an emotional speech shared partially on Instagram. “Everybody laughed at me and, you know, I said, ‘I really believe that.”

Spanx began as a shapewear company and has since expanded to sell other undergarments, leggings and activewear across the globe. The company also operates retail shops across the U.S.

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