Canopy Growth co-founder Bruce Linton buys more stock after cannabis company fires him
- Fired Canopy Growth co-CEO Bruce Linton says he bought more stock in the company.
- The Canadian pot company announced in July that Linton was removed as co-chief executive officer and board member.
- "It was a right time for them to make the change, and it was the right time to buy the stock," Linton tells CNBC.
Bruce Linton says he bought more stock in Canopy Growth — even though the cannabis company he co-founded fired him earlier this summer.
"It was a right time for them to make the change, and it was the right time to buy the stock," Linton said Tuesday in an interview with CNBC's "Squawk Box." "Because when I look at it, I go, I was one person. If I was that important to the company, then the company's not that key.
"We have an awesome team there, and when it's cheap you buy more," he said.
Canopy, the world's largest publicly traded cannabis company by market value, announced in July that Linton was removed as co-chief executive officer and a member of the board. Linton called into CNBC later that morning and said he was fired.
"I think stepping down might not be the right phrase," he said, referring to the language in the company press release. "I was terminated."
Linton had suggested that Constellation Brands, Canopy's largest shareholder, wanted a leadership change. Constellation said at the time that the company fully supports the decision to appoint Mark Zekulin, who had been co-CEO with Linton, as Canopy's sole CEO.
Canopy shares have struggled since Linton's departure, sliding last week on disappointing quarterly results. Linton said Tuesday people "misunderstood" the quarter.
"There's this big headline number, but when I look at stocks and look at quarterly announcements, I really don't care about the noncash affecting things. ... I just look at the actual losses and where they spent their money. It wasn't that big, and what they spent it on was intellectual property and growth," he said.
Linton said he will announce his next move in September, when he'll share which "three or four" companies he will work with.
"My advice I've been giving to a lot of people is you should get terminated as soon as you can because you become immediately very popular, at least if you've built a company whose market cap got to $20 billion in six years," he said.