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Spanx CEO gifts employees $10K and plane tickets to celebrate $1.2B valuation

NEW YORK, NY - OCTOBER 25: Spanx Founder Sara Blakely speaks onstage for during day 3 of Fast Company Innovation Festival at 92nd Street Y on October 25, 2018 in New York City. (Photo by Bennett Raglin/Getty Images for Fast Company)

CHICAGO (NewsNation Now) — Spanx founder Sara Blakely gifted each employee with a pair of round-trip tickets to anywhere in the world and a $10,000 bonus in celebration of the billion-dollar sale of the company.

Blakely sold a majority stake in Spanx to Blackstone last week, the deal valued the shapewear company at $1.2 billion.


“To celebrate this moment, I have bought each one of you two first-class tickets to anywhere in the world,” the self-made mogul announced to a room full of her staff on Friday. 

A now-viral clip of Blakely’s announcement shows Spanx employees crying, screaming and embracing one another in excitement over the CEO’s gesture.

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

Spanx has approximately 750 employees.