Bungie CEO criticised for spending millions on classic cars, as calls for leadership changes escalate

Following news of yesterday’s layoffs at Bungie, CEO Pete Parsons has faced criticised from staff for spending millions on classic cars since the studio was purchased by Sony in 2022 and bragging about his lavish collection, as the company headed towards this week’s latest brutal round of job losses.

Employees – some of whom are now unemployed – have shared links to an array of classic cars purchased via the Bring a Trailer website, with Parsons profile public and listing a vast number of auction wins. The earliest was in September 2022 costing $34,000; the most recent was 1st June this year costing $91,500, just a month before these latest layoffs. “How exciting!” wrote Parsons in a comment. “I have wanted a c1 since I was a little kid. My second hot wheel ever (in gold). Going to its forever home.”

Parsons spent $79,000 on a vehicle in October 2023 just ahead of the previous layoffs, followed by three more purchases over the remainder of the year – including a Porsche costing over $200k. In total, Parsons appears to have spent $2,414,550 on vehicles.

Sony purchased Bungie in 2022 for $3.6bn. While it’s unclear how much Parsons has earned since the buyout, it would appear Bungie’s senior leadership has not taken salary cuts while over the past nine months almost a quarter of the workforce has been laid off.

In a report from IGN last December following layoffs at Bungie, employees asked a department head during a post-layoffs Q&A if leadership would be taking salary cuts, to which the response was Bungie was “not that type of company”.

Parsons described yesterday’s layoffs as “some of the most difficult changes we’ve ever had to make as a studio” in a blog post, citing the rising costs of development, industry shifts, and “enduring economic conditions” as key reasons for the cutbacks.

The response to the layoffs online has been mostly anger, with Destiny 2’s global community lead Dylan Gafner in particular calling the layoffs “inexcusable”.

Parsons’ Bring a Trailer account was spotted and shared online following the news, with many calling for the CEO to step down.

Bungie lays off 17% of it’s workforce… unrelated here is a list of cars the CEO has purchased on BAT

Players and workers need to support each other.https://t.co/48qToI4Cf7

— TAILORED (@boxrTailored) July 31, 2024

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Former Destiny 2 community manager Liana Ruppert shared a story on social media of struggling to find money for groceries while working at Bungie, while Parsons “bragged about a few new expensive cars he bought and that we should come to his house and see them.”

Step down, Pete. https://t.co/I5d7L8kcfq

— Liana Ruppert (@DirtyEffinHippy) July 31, 2024

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Ruppert continued: “And I have not stopped digging since October. There’s so much more to this that won’t come out for a few more years to protect people, but I just want to say this: This falls squarely on leadership.”