Jeff Green, CEO of The Trade Desk, purchased roughly $148 million worth of the company’s stock earlier this week, according to a Form 4 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The purchases, made between March 2 and March 4 at prices ranging from about $23 to $25 a share, represent a rare open-market buy by the adtech company’s cofounder.
In a blog post today, Green said he was “putting my money where my mouth is,” citing his conviction in The Trade Desk’s strategy and long-term opportunity in digital advertising. He highlighted the company’s investments in AI, expansion of programmatic inventory, including chatbot and commerce placements, and a growing total addressable market.
Green predicted that the ad industry is on the verge of a fundamental shift in how it thinks about inventory, with The Trade Desk poised to tap into two emerging formats — chatbot placements and sponsored shopping listings — that would expand the pool of programmatically purchasable, search-like inventory and grow the company’s total addressable market.
The purchase comes as The Trade Desk faces a shifting digital ad landscape, with AI answer engines like ChatGPT drawing attention away from the open web and cutting into inventory that demand-side platforms rely on. The adtech firm is also navigating challenges from rivals and partners: major agencies including Dentsu and WPP recently ended participation in The Trade Desk’s OpenPath, and Amazon has been pulling millions in ad spend into its own DSP, ADWEEK previously reported.
The Trade Desk reported $847 million in revenue for Q4 2025, up 14% year-over-year, slowing from 22% growth in Q4 2024.
Green also criticized Amazon and the trade press, specifically ADWEEK, in his blog post. He called Amazon’s DSP “overrated.” Amazon reported $21.3 billion in 2025 ad revenue, showing a 22% YoY growth.
