[sfifs]

In any real going business, cost of hiring and training someone of a type who is eligible for compensation with stock options and the subsequent morale dip if discovered doing such manipulation would by far outweigh the benefits of doing this. So this is largely a tin foil hat scenario

[Bartweiss]

For any business with decent size, absolutely. There are a thousand ways to claw back options, and the reason they don't get used is that doing it even once would make hiring practically impossible.

For a small enough company? It falls in the same category as "diluting out of one guy's shares" - bad morals and bad business, but it still happens.