Notable Seattle CEO Dan Price back with company after sexual assault claims dropped

Gravity Payments’ former CEO Dan Price has returned to the Seattle-based company he founded after previously resigning less than two years ago.

Price, 40, announced his return on X, stating he is back as a strategic advisor to Tammi Kroll, who took over as CEO when Price resigned in 2022.

I am back to work full-time at Gravity Payments, the company I founded over 20 years ago. I’m in a new role advising and assisting the CEO on strategy. It’s been great to be back 👍

— Dan Price (@DanPriceSeattle) May 28, 2024

Price stepped down from his role as CEO after he was accused of attempting to forcibly kiss a woman and grabbing her throat — two counts of fourth-degree assault — alongside an additional charge of reckless driving.

Dan Price’s sexual assault allegations

Seattle police records stated Price had agreed to meet a woman at a downtown restaurant Jan. 20 of last year. While the victim was hailing an Uber, Price was said to have offered to let her wait for a ride in his own vehicle, despite allegedly becoming intoxicated at the restaurant.

At that time, Price reportedly made a sexual advance, at which point “she pushed him away and then he grabbed her throat,” the police report read.

More on Dan Price’s allegations: Assault, reckless driving charges against former CEO Dan Price dropped

The police report stated he then drove off with the woman still in the car, arriving at a parking lot where Price began “doing donuts.” Price then allegedly “tried kissing her again … after she pushed him away the second time, he grabbed her throat again and was pulsing his hand for minutes,” according to the police report. The situation de-escalated, at which point a friend assisted the woman and left.

Price pleaded not guilty to the charges, calling them “false accusations.” The charges were dropped approximately eight months after he stepped down as CEO, with further investigations finding “more egregious inconsistencies and contradictions,” according to Seattle Municipal Court records in a report from The Seattle Times.

Dan Price: Celebrity CEO

Price made national headlines when he slashed his CEO salary to give his employees a raise. In 2015, Price stunned his staff of more than 100 employees when he told them he was cutting his approximate $1 million salary to just $70,000, using the savings to create a base pay of $70,000 for employees by 2018.

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The average annual salary at Gravity Payments — a credit card processing and financial services company founded in 2004 — before Price’s decision was $48,000, according to CBS News.

Despite Price no longer operating as Gravity Payment’s CEO, he still owns 100% of the credit card processing company, according to The Seattle Times. Price founded the company in 2004 when he was just 19 years old.

Frank Sumrall is a content editor at MyNorthwest. You can read his stories here and you can email him here.