An Airbnb cofounder is on a roll — he got $3 billion richer and cashed in $1 billion worth of stock this year

• Airbnb cofounder Joe Gebbia sold over $1 billion in Airbnb Class A shares this year.
• The stock soared 70% this year, upping Gebbia's net worth to nearly $9 billion.
• Gebbia stepped down from his full-time operating role at Airbnb in July last year.

Airbnb cofounder Joe Gebbia is on a roll his year as share prices of the home-sharing platform surge post-pandemic.

A 70% rally in Airbnb's stock since January sent Gebbia's net worth up $3 billion to almost $9 billion as of Wednesday — and the 41-year-old has been cashing it in with a series of share sales.

Last Thursday, Gebbia — now the 251st richest person in the world, per Bloomberg Billionaires Index — sold 516,666 Class A Airbnb shares for $71.7 million, according to a regulatory filing.

This particular share sale was the latest in a series this year that took his total stock sales to over $1 billion so far, per Bloomberg's calculations.

In 2007, Gebbia founded the platform along with Brian Chesky and Nathan Blecharczyk, who are now the CEO and chief strategy officer at the company, respectively.

He stepped down from his full-time operating role at Airbnb in July last year and has been watering down his stake since. He has sold nearly $1.4 billion worth of Airbnb stock so far, per Bloomberg.

Gebbia still sits on Airbnb's board and is the chairman of its nonprofit arm, Airbnb.org.

Since leaving Airbnb in a full-time capacity, Gebbia co-founded Samara, a design studio, in October last year. He also sits on the board of Tesla.

On Tuesday, the Nasdaq-listed Airbnb shares closed 0.8% higher at $146.53 apiece.

Airbnb did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider sent outside regular business hours.