Spotify CEO Daniel Ek is standing down from his position to take up a new role as executive chair of the streaming company.
As of January 1, 2026, two current senior employees – Gustav Söderström, currently co-president and chief product and technology officer, and Alex Norström, co-president and chief business officer – will take up new roles as the company’s co-CEOs, and will report to Ek. They are also set to join the company’s board of directors, once shareholder approval is granted.
The change in positions, Spotify said, formalises how it has operated since 2023, “with the co-presidents largely leading strategic development and operational execution of Spotify”.
In his own statement, Ek, who founded Spotify in 2006, said he had already “turned over a large part of the day-to-day management and strategic direction of Spotify to Alex and Gustav” and added that the “change simply matches titles to how we already operate”.
Ek assumed the role of Spotify CEO in 2016 and has gone on to become a controversial figure both within and outside the music industry. Last year, he drew the ire of musicians after claiming that “the cost of creating content is close to zero”, with many suggesting that he downplayed the value in artists’ labour.
Most controversially, Ek is the founder of an investment fund called Prima Materia, which has led multiple rounds of investment in Helsing, a defence company that sells software that uses artificial intelligence to support the actions of various nations’ militaries. Prima Materia has been investing in Helsing since 2021, and the defence company currently operates in the United Kingdom, Germany and France, among other nations.
A number of artists – including Godspeed You! Black Emperor, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, Xiu Xiu and Deerhoof removed their music from Spotify earlier this year, citing Ek’s investments into military technology as one reason for why they made the move.
