imagine Based on tools such as artificial intelligence and stablecoins. Just two years later, that vision fell through, with PayPal announcing on Tuesday that it would be ousting Chris and replacing him with board chairman Enrique Lores, who currently serves as PayPal’s CEO. HP. The move comes after Chris failed to stem a decline in PayPal’s stock price, which is down about 80% from five years ago, and the company’s forecast of lower earnings in 2026.
in a statementPayPal made clear it was replacing Chris due to his poor performance, saying, “The pace of change and execution was not consistent with the board’s expectations.”
Lores’ appointment did not appear to reassure the market, which responded to the dismal earnings news with further selling, causing PayPal shares to fall about 17% on Tuesday. Meanwhile, the news of Lores’s departure reportedly caught off guard humana
apple and stripeeroding its core payments and checkout business. Despite having massive global distribution and key products like Venmo, PayPal has been unable to hit on a strategy to keep pace.
In an interview in December wealthChris acknowledged that PayPal faces “The classic innovator’s dilemma”
—one of the buzziest areas of fintech at the moment—but the token, known as PYUSD, has failed to gain any significant market share. Currently, PYUSD has a total market capitalization of approximately $3.5 billion, while U.S. market leader USDC has a total market capitalization of approximately $70 billion, represented by Circle and Coin library.
Incoming CEO Lores will officially begin his tenure at PayPal on March 1, and Jamie Miller, the company’s chief financial and operating officer, will lead the company in the interim. In a statement, Lores only spoke of his plans for the company in broad strokes.
“We will further strengthen PayPal’s industry leadership by further strengthening the culture of innovation needed to achieve long-term transformation and balancing that with near-term delivery, executing with greater speed and precision, and holding ourselves accountable for the consistency of quarterly delivery,” Lores said.