After targeting Adani Group, US short-seller Hindenburg Research on Thursday accused Twitter founder Jack Dorsey-led payments firm Block Inc of "overstating its user counts and understating its customer acquisition costs"
Hindenburg has accused Block's co-founders Jack Dorsey and James McKelvey along with executives, including CFO Amrita Ahuja, and the lead manager for Cash App, Brian Grassadonia, of "dumping millions of dollars in stock"
Ahuja is an Indian-American executive who rose the ranks of Block to become the company’s CFO in February this year. She was featured in Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Summit in 2022.
Ahuja is alumna of premium universities such as London School of Economics, Duke University and Harvard Business School
Before joining Block in 2019, she worked with business behemoths such as Airbnb, McKinsey & Company, The Walt Disney Company, among others. She started her journey as an investment banker with consulting firm Morgan Stanley in 2001
According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, Ahuja is the daughter of Indian immigrants who owned a day-care centre in a suburb of Cleveland
Hindenburg said former Block employees estimated that 40%-75% of accounts they reviewed were fake. The US short seller said its investigation revealed "the company’s willingness to facilitate fraud against consumers and the government"
Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, who co-founded Block in 2009 in his San Francisco apartment with the goal to shake up the credit card industry, is Block's largest shareholder with a stake of around 8%
Shares of Block, which has a market capitalisation of $44 billion, slid 20% to $58.39 on Thursday following the report
In an interview with CNBC, Ahuja said Block "had a very strong 2022 delivering record gross profit of nearly $6 billion"