Microsoft’s chief govt Satya Nadella earned $79.1m (£61m) final yr, an increase of 63% in comparison with his compensation the yr earlier than.
That was regardless of a request from Mr Nadella to scale back one aspect of his pay bundle due to cybersecurity flaws on the tech large – which resulted in him getting $5m lower than he in any other case would have.
In frequent with many tech corporations, Microsoft has lower hundreds of jobs this yr, together with many in its gaming division.
However in a proxy assertion filed with the US monetary regulator, the board stated the corporate’s income grew by 16% within the yr to 30 June 2024.
“Mr. Nadella agreed that the Firm’s efficiency was extraordinarily robust,” Microsoft’s compensation committee wrote in a letter to shareholders.
It added he requested them “to contemplate departing from the established efficiency metrics and cut back his money incentive to replicate his private accountability” over a variety of cyber assaults.
One such assault was reported in July 2023 by Microsoft, the place hackers gained entry to the e-mail accounts of round 25 organisations, together with authorities businesses.
Microsoft stated the assault originated in China, although the Chinese language embassy in London known as this “disinformation”.
The fiscal interval runs as much as 30 June 2024 – simply weeks earlier than the large web outage which affected Microsoft Home windows PCs, inflicting chaos all over the world.
Whereas that was not a cyber assault, later in July Microsoft apologised for one other outage which was brought on by a cyber assault.
The compensation committee stated it decreased Mr Nadella’s money pay by greater than half, to $5.2m.
That represents lower than 7% of his complete pay.
The majority of his pay, $71.2m, was made up of inventory choices.
Excessive Pay Centre director Luke Hildyard stated “superficially” the earnings made sense given Microsoft’s robust monetary efficiency.
“Nevertheless, we’d additionally ask whether or not the additional $79 million on prime of $49 million final yr for somebody who’s already value tons of of tens of millions, with more cash than they might spent over a number of lifetimes of absolute luxurious, is actually obligatory as a reward of incentive,” he instructed the BBC.
“None of Microsoft’s success can be potential with out staff, clients and wider society so maybe the proceeds of that success ought to be share a little bit extra evenly,” he added.
Elsewhere in huge tech, Apple boss Tim Cook dinner earned $63.2m in 2023, whereas the chief govt of the world’s most beneficial firm Nvidia, Jensen Huang, was paid $34.2m within the 2024 fiscal yr.
However none of them come near Tesla boss Elon Musk, whose pay packet may very well be value as much as $56bn.
