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John Foley

Executive

Type
Person
Role
Executive
Updated

The profile

Peloton co-founder and chief executive through the lockdown boom. Revenue rose 120% to $4.02 billion in the year to June 2021; in the month of the Tread+ recall, Peloton announced a $400 million Ohio factory. It took no PPP loan.

Identity and role

John Foley co-founded Peloton Interactive, Inc. in 2012 and was its chief executive for ten years. He became executive chair in February 2022 and resigned from that post effective September 12, 2022. He is now chief executive of Ernesta, a custom-rug company.

Biography / career arc

Before Peloton, according to Ernesta's launch release, Foley launched or led Proust.com, Pronto.com and Evite.com, three businesses backed by IAC; was president of e-commerce at Barnes & Noble; and held leadership positions at Mars and Citysearch. Peloton sold shares in its initial public offering in September 2019 at $29.00 each.

Pandemic-relief / PPP-EIDL role

The lockdown year more than doubled Peloton's sales. For the fiscal year ended June 30, 2021, total revenue was $4,021.8 million, up 120% from $1,825.9 million, and Connected Fitness Subscriptions grew 114% to 2,330,700. The company reported a net loss of $189.0 million and adjusted EBITDA of $253.7 million. Its 10-K noted that while many technology stocks had fallen since the outbreak, Peloton's had risen: from the IPO through July 30, 2021 the stock traded between $17.70 and $171.09.

The company planned for more. In May 2021 it announced a U.S. factory in Troy Township, Ohio, called Peloton Output Park, and said it intended to invest about $400 million to build it. It had already bought the fitness-equipment maker Precor. The 10-K for the boom year called the company "highly dependent on the services of John Foley."

Their own relief

The SBA's PPP data show no loan to Peloton Interactive. The borrowers named "Peloton" are unrelated small businesses, among them a Wisconsin print shop and an Illinois wealth manager. No relief loan to Foley personally appears in the documents cited here.

Foley has not been charged with any crime. The Tread+ treadmill brought the regulators. The Consumer Product Safety Commission issued a product-safety warning on April 17, 2021, and on May 5, 2021 Peloton recalled about 125,000 Tread+ machines. By then Peloton had received 72 reports of adults, children, pets or objects pulled under the rear of the treadmill, including 29 reports of injuries to children, and one child had died. On January 5, 2023 the CPSC announced that Peloton had agreed to pay a $19,065,000 civil penalty. The agency charged that Peloton knowingly failed to report the defect immediately, after receiving incident reports beginning in December 2018, and that after the recall it distributed 38 recalled treadmills.

Investors sued Foley too. On April 29, 2021 Ashley Wilson filed a putative securities class action in the Eastern District of New York against Peloton, its chief executive and its chief financial officer (No. 1:21-cv-02369), later covering purchases from September 11, 2020 to May 5, 2021. Shareholder derivative suits named Foley personally, including Chu v. Foley and Genack v. Foley. These are allegations; the documents cited here do not record their outcomes.

Where they are now (2025–2026)

On November 7, 2022 Ernesta, a direct-to-consumer custom-rug company started by Foley, Hisao Kushi and Yony Feng, three Peloton co-founders, announced a $25 million Series A led by Addition, with True Ventures participating. Foley is its chief executive. Karen Boone replaced him as Peloton's board chair.

Sources

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