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Airbnb

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Type
Company or group
Role
Other company
Updated

The profile

Its hosts are the small-business / self-employed population that PPP and EIDL targeted. Airbnb's first pandemic act was to extend full guest refunds that overrode host cancellation policies ; its host-support programs followed.

  • Type: Short-term lodging and experiences marketplace. Public company, NASDAQ: ABNB (IPO December 10, 2020).
  • Legal entity: Airbnb, Inc. (Delaware C-corp, headquartered in San Francisco).
  • Founded: 2008, San Francisco, by Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia, and Nathan Blecharczyk.
  • CEO: Brian Chesky (co-founder), throughout the pandemic and today.

Pandemic-role map

  • Reader shorthand: lodging marketplace whose hosts were small-business/self-employed relief targets, while Airbnb itself was not a lender.
  • What Airbnb did for hosts/customers: overrode host cancellation policies for guest refunds, then offered host-support payments, Superhost grants, cleaning protocols, and Frontline Stays housing.
  • What Airbnb did for relief access: did not operate a PPP or EIDL application funnel; hosts had to seek public aid through government or lender channels.
  • What Airbnb sold to other companies/government: marketplace lodging and housing coordination, not KYC, lending, or public-benefits infrastructure.

Before the pandemic (2008–early 2020)

Airbnb entered 2020 as a pre-IPO global marketplace for short-term stays and Experiences, with revenue almost entirely dependent on travel. Its "small businesses" were its hosts: individuals renting rooms and homes, many of them sole proprietors of the kind the CARES Act made eligible for PPP and EIDL. When travel collapsed, the pressure landed first on those hosts and on the cancellation terms in their listings.

During the pandemic (March 2020 – 2022)

Refunds first, hosts second

Airbnb's founders put its pandemic refunds at "more than $1 billion." The rule behind them was the Extenuating Circumstances policy, applied to COVID-19 on March 14, 2020: bookings made on or before that date could be canceled "with no charge or penalty," overriding hosts' own cancellation policies. By March 30 the window ran to check-ins on May 31. The prospectus names who paid: "A large number of guest cancellations under the policy caused lost earnings for our hosts."

Chesky's March 30 letter told hosts: "I'm sorry that we communicated this decision to guests without consulting you—like partners should." It promised "We will pay $250 million to hosts," at 25% of what each would have received under their own cancellation policy. The prospectus calls it a commitment of "up to $250 million," accounted for as a reduction to revenue. For 2020 Airbnb recorded $205.1 million of payments under the policy, "primarily for hosts." That is $44.9 million below the headline.

The Superhost Relief Fund opened at $10 million: $1 million from employees, $9 million from the three founders. Grants ran from $1,000 to $5,000, did not need to be repaid, and went to Superhosts renting out their own homes and to long-tenured Experience hosts. By June 18 the fund totaled $17 million, including $7 million from investors, and had paid $16.8 million to more than 8,700 hosts, 67 percent of them outside the United States. In the prospectus, the founders' money appears as capital contributions to the company: $10.1 million from Chesky and $4.5 million from Joe Gebbia, to support "charitable commitments and initiatives," including the Superhost fund.

Airbnb also rolled out an Enhanced Cleaning protocol, launched June 18, 2020 as "Airbnb Enhanced Clean" (the April 27 announcement with former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy is cited to Airbnb's newsroom). It was voluntary throughout: hosts opted in for a listing badge, with a 24-hour pre-entry wait under the protocol and a separate 72-hour booking buffer for hosts who did not adopt it ("Introducing Airbnb Enhanced Clean," June 18, 2020; we have a copy).

On March 26, 2020, Airbnb launched Frontline Stays, an evolution of its 2012 Open Homes program, with a stated goal of housing 100,000 healthcare workers, relief workers, and first responders worldwide. Stays were free or subsidized: Airbnb waived its own fees, and hosts opted in to offer homes free or discounted (Frontline Stays housing announcement, March 26, 2020). The program later folded into the nonprofit Airbnb.org.

Public money: hosts yes, Airbnb no

On March 17, 2020 Airbnb asked Washington to "Ensure hosts qualify for expanded US Small Business Administration economic injury disaster loans." Ten days later, after over 100,000 host emails to Congress, it wrote: "Thanks in part to these advocacy efforts, Congress passed legislation that includes eligibility for Airbnb hosts." SBA's PPP loan data contain no loan to Airbnb, Inc. Seventy-seven loans went to borrowers with "Airbnb" in their names, for $796,167 in all; the largest was $29,166.

The CARES Act reached Airbnb's own books through taxes: a $100.0 million loss-carryback benefit, accrued in the first half of 2020 and reversed after Airbnb approved a plan to move its intellectual property to the United States.

Private money at 15.1%

Airbnb "raised $2 billion in debt" in April 2020. Its announcement described the Silver Lake and Sixth Street money as "a combination of debt and equity securities." The filings show a $1.0 billion second-lien loan at LIBOR plus 10%, an effective 15.1%, and warrants on 7,934,794 shares at $28.355 issued to Silver Lake and Sixth Street entities. The first-lien loan carried an effective 9.5%. The warrants were valued at $116.6 million when issued and $985.2 million at the end of 2020, after the IPO priced at $68.00. In March 2021 Airbnb repaid $1,995.0 million and booked a $377.2 million loss on extinguishment, including $212.9 million of early-redemption premiums.

The layoff, counted three ways

On May 5, 2020 Chesky forecast 2020 revenue at "less than half" of 2019's and said "nearly 1,900" of 7,500 employees, about 25%, would leave. The prospectus says "approximately 1,800," particularly in marketing, design and customer service. California's WARN log lists 661 Airbnb employees in San Francisco, notice dated May 6, 2020, "Layoff Permanent," and a separate notice for 241 workers of "Bon Appetit Management Co. operation at Airbnb." Restructuring cost $151.4 million in 2020. Revenue for 2020 came in at $3.38 billion, down 30%.

The memo (we have a copy) set out the departure terms. In the US, departing staff got 14 weeks of base pay plus one week per year of service, and 12 months of COBRA health coverage. The one-year equity cliff was dropped for recent hires, everyone leaving kept their laptops, and departing staff could opt into a public alumni talent directory.

The founders took no salary, and other named executives took 50% cuts, from April 1 to September 30, 2020. Chesky's 2020 compensation table shows $55,000 in salary and $119,880,000 in stock awards; in November the board set his salary at $1 and granted him 12 million RSUs. Airbnb said he intended to donate the net proceeds of that package to charitable causes.

Relief narrows

In January 2022 Airbnb offered guests whose trips were stopped by government mandates, such as border closures or extended quarantines, a coupon for 50 percent of any unrefunded amount, funded "with $20 million initially."

On the February 2023 earnings call Chesky said: "I think that we're one of the few tech companies that isn't doing layoffs." At the end of 2022 Airbnb had 6,811 employees, fewer than the 7,500 it had before the cut.

After the pandemic (2021–present)

Airbnb went public on December 10, 2020, at $68.00 a share (Form S-1 and Form 424(b)(4)). Airbnb.org continued as the company's nonprofit housing vehicle.

Current posture (as of mid-2026)

Public company, NASDAQ: ABNB, with Brian Chesky as CEO. No Airbnb corporate PPP loan or PPP-fraud finding has been found.

Sources

Primary documents in this archive

External references

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