I worked for a company about 18 months ago and the CEO sent an email to everyone "prohibiting" selling your shares on the secondary market because he was worrie

I worked for a company about 18 months ago and the CEO sent an email to everyone "prohibiting" selling your shares on the secondary market because he was worried about a hostile takeover. None of this made sense to me. You're going to restrict your early employees from making money? No one owns more than .5% so why would one be worried at all? To me it just seemed like another example of a CEO believing their employees are second class citizens and that they don't deserve any money until the CEO is RICH.