Best boss ever? Spanx CEO gives all employees first-class plane tickets and $10,000

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One CEO’s employees are getting free trips around the world, and they can thank Spanx for the memories.

It was a scene full of ecstatic smiles, dropped jaws and delirious hugs last week when Spanx founder and CEO Sara Blakely surprised her employees with first-class plane tickets to anywhere in the world and $10,000 in spending money after the company was valued at $1.2 billion in a deal with private equity firm Blackstone.

The self-made founder of the billion-dollar shapewear company shared a video on Instagram of her telling employees about the gift and showing their reaction.

"Behind the scenes @spanx telling the employees (some live and some on zoom) about the sale and partnership with Blackstone," Blakely wrote. "It was an emotional announcement filled with happy tears acknowledging how far we’ve come.

"And then the tears really started to flow when I surprised everybody with 2 first class @delta plane tickets to anywhere in the world and $10,000 cash to spend on the trip. I really want every employee to celebrate this moment in their own way and create a memory that will last them a lifetime! Cheers to 21 years of magic and many more to come …. 🥂"

Blakely, 50, started the company with $5,000 of her savings and ended up becoming a self-made billionaire.

"When I first started Spanx, I wrote one goal down that this company will one day be worth $20 million," she says in the video. "Everybody laughed at me."

After toasting to her employees and the women who came before her, Blakely shares that she is giving them the trip of a lifetime and a nice stack of money to enjoy it.

Once they dab their tears and pick their jaws off the floor, several employees share they are headed to South Africa, Croatia, Antarctica, a honeymoon in Bora Bora and an elopement in Sweden thanks to Spanx.