That isn't the employee's money by definition - when it was sold as equity it became the shareholders. Just giving it away would be embezzlement just as much as

That isn't the employee's money by definition - when it was sold as equity it became the shareholders. Just giving it away would be embezzlement just as much as if the CEO decided to have it resting in their account. Thus there needs some sort of purpose for the spending. Without any sort of equity based compensation the relationship with employees is inherently transactional - only getting more money if they think there is some sort of return from it be it reduced turnover, better performance, or as a way to attract new talent. If you want employees to gain in that situation you need a worker owned coop, there is nothing making such a thing illegal although historically it usually hasn't scaled as well for several reasons and the inaccessibility of the equity to employees and lack of guarantees means the default assessment for that value in new ventures is $0 to the employee.