LONDON — Fintech unicorn Checkout.com is giving staff a way of cashing in their shares: buying them out.

The London-headquartered payments platform said Friday that it plans to launch a share buyback initiative for employees to “provide them with a path to liquidity.”

The share buyback program is based on a new internal valuation of $12 billion, Checkout.com said. Although internal, the valuation marks a significant drop from its last fundraising round — Checkout.com was valued at $40 billion in a $1 billion funding round in 2022.

The company previously lowered its internal valuation to $11 billion in 2022, and then again to $9.35 billion in 2023. Checkout.com says it regularly monitors the value for its employees in its share incentive program.

The fintech competes with payment service providers such as Stripe, Adyen and PayPal. The company processes billions of dollars in transactions every year for the likes of eBay, IKEA and Sainsbury’s.

Such share sales have proven an increasingly popular way for startups to offer longtime employees and other investors liquidity, particularly as tech companies stay private for longer amid a multi-year decline in initial public offerings.

Checkout.com says it is now on track to exceed a target of 30% core net revenue growth this year and is forecasting $300 billion in annual e-commerce payment volume.

“We are relentlessly focused on growth and innovation, particularly with the impact of AI and the expected rise of agentic commerce,” said Guillaume Pousaz, the company’s CEO and founder, in a press release.

Several other private fintechs have opted to allow employees to sell shares in recent months.

In February, Stripe announced a tender offer allowing early investors and employees to sell shares at a valuation of $91.5 billion. Revolut, meanwhile, earlier this month offered staff the chance to sell shares on the secondary market at a $75 billion valuation.

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The director of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, Joseph Pelfrey, announced his resignation from the role on Thursday, CNBC confirmed.

Pelfrey said in an email to employees at the space agency that as NASA focuses on its mission to return humans to the moon, it will be “important for agency leadership to move forward with a team they choose to execute the tasks at hand.”

The email also said Pelfrey would work with NASA leaders to “pursue new ways” to “serve our space program and our great nation.” Pelfrey wasn’t immediately available to comment.

NASA confirmed Pelfrey’s resignation and said in an email to CNBC that the agency is proceeding “with a public, open competition to find the next permanent director at one of the agency’s most important centers for human spaceflight.”

At Marshall Space Flight Center, in Huntsville, Alabama, Pelfrey oversaw “7,000 onsite and near-site civil service and contractor employees,” and “an annual budget of approximately $5 billion,” according to a NASA web page describing his responsibilities. The space center now employs over 6,000 people, according to the center’s official government website.

Pelfrey had planned an all-hands conference with Marshall employees this week that was canceled, said agency staffers, who asked not to be named to discuss sensitive matters. They said Pelfrey’s resignation came as a surprise.

The White House’s 2026 budget request, which has not yet been enacted into law, includes funding for the space agency. However, NASA’s resources have declined amid Trump administration budget cuts.

About 4,000 NASA employees left through a deferred resignation program offered by the agency, and others were let go through cuts initiated by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an effort that was led by Elon Musk during his days with the Trump administration.

The administration also defunded and compelled the closure of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, which was housed in a building owned by Columbia University in New York.

WATCH: Why the U.S. and SpaceX need each other

Tesla shares fell more than 4% on Thursday after data out of Europe showed a continuing sales slump for the automaker, despite strong demand for fully electric vehicles in the region. 

Tesla EV registrations in Europe, a proxy for sales, fell by about 23% year-over-year in August, according to data from the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA) on Thursday.

There were 14,831 Tesla EV registrations in Europe last month, down from 19,136 in August 2024. In the first eight months of this year, Tesla EV registrations in Europe declined 32.6%, the ACEA said.

Meanwhile, total EV registrations throughout the region rose by around 26% through August compared to the same period in 2024. By contrast, registrations for petrol and diesel-powered vehicles declined by more than 20% over that stretch.

Still, RBC analysts wrote in a note on Thursday that they expect Tesla’s total deliveries for the third quarter could amount to 456,000, above a FactSet-compiled consensus of 448,000 deliveries and a Visible Alpha consensus of 440,000 deliveries.

The analysts expect a bump for Tesla as consumers rush to buy EVs in the U.S. before a $7,500 federal tax credit expires at the end of September.

Even with Thursday’s slide, Tesla’s stock has bounced back following a brutal start to the year. It’s now up 5% in 2025 after plunging 36% in the first quarter.

Musk’s political activism in the U.S. and beyond has hurt the Tesla brand and dampened its appeal to many prospective EV buyers.

Earlier this year, Musk endorsed Germany’s far-right AfD party, and this month he appeared by video at an anti-immigrant rally in the U.K. that turned violent. The rally was led by activist Tommy Robinson, a convicted fraudster with a violent criminal record.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer rebuked Musk for “dangerous” comments that he made at the rally, where 26 police officers were injured. Musk told attendees, “violence is coming to you” and “you either fight back or you die.”

To revitalize interest in the brand, Tesla has said an affordable new model is in the works, which could help it fend off increased competition from the likes of Volkswagen, BYD and other EV makers that have been picking up market share.

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