Pump.fun gave ex-staff 7-figure PUMP dreams, then handed them a one-week severance 💸

Former Pump.fun employees say they were terminated roughly two months before their PUMP token allocations were set to vest, with one departing worker reportedly losing PUMP worth seven figures at current prices. An anonymous X account claiming to represent more than 40 ex-staff began publishing internal termination emails this week, and the Solana launchpad has not publicly addressed the allegations. Grant agreements covering those allocations were signed in mid-June 2025, according to documents reviewed by Sandmark.

The job cuts came in early April, when a quarter of each staff member's token package was scheduled to vest roughly two months later. Co-founder Noah Tweedale attributed the layoffs to a business that "grew too quickly" and could no longer move "fast and rough," with severance set at one week of salary for every month worked. That same month, the platform burned $370 million of repurchased PUMP, eliminating roughly 36% of circulating supply; co-founder Alon Cohen defended the move at the time by stating "Every dollar not burned is a dollar being put to work toward the same outcome."

The staff cliff expired on July 12, exactly one year after PUMP sold at $0.004 in its initial coin offering. Tokenomist data shows the 82.5 billion token release was split 50 billion for the team and 32.5 billion for existing investors, with the team tranche alone worth about $102 million at Friday's price. By comparison, Pump.fun recorded $19.1 million in revenue over the 30 days to July 22, per DefiLlama, with $764,802 logged on July 22 itself, a 22.6% rise month over month and part of $1.07 billion in cumulative earnings since March 2024.

PUMP traded near $0.0020 on Friday, up almost 6% over 24 hours, but remained 77% below its September 2025 peak and 49% under the ICO price. Independent verification of the dismissals remains limited: Sandmark could not confirm a second layoff wave, and Baton Corporation Ltd, the UK entity behind Pump.fun, has yet to file its accounts for the period ending September 30, 2025, which were due at Companies House by June 30 and would disclose employee numbers. The last filed accounts cover the year to March 2024.

Tweedale and Cohen are also named personally in a securities class action filed in the Southern District of New York in January 2025. Pump.fun did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BeInCrypto.