Microsoft’s chief government Satya Nadella earned $79.1m (£61m) final 12 months, an increase of 63% in comparison with his compensation the 12 months earlier than.
That was regardless of a request from Mr Nadella to cut back one ingredient of his pay package deal due to cybersecurity flaws on the tech big – which resulted in him getting $5m lower than he in any other case would have.
In frequent with many tech companies, Microsoft has minimize 1000’s of jobs this 12 months, together with many in its gaming division.
However in a proxy assertion filed with the US monetary regulator, the board mentioned the corporate’s income grew by 16% within the 12 months to 30 June 2024.
“Mr. Nadella agreed that the Firm’s efficiency was extraordinarily sturdy,” Microsoft’s compensation committee wrote in a letter to shareholders.
It added he requested them “to contemplate departing from the established efficiency metrics and scale back his money incentive to replicate his private accountability” over numerous 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 companies.
Microsoft mentioned 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 huge 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 attributable to a cyber assault.
The compensation committee mentioned it diminished Mr Nadella’s money pay by greater than half, to $5.2m.
That represents lower than 7% of his whole pay.
The majority of his pay, $71.2m, was made up of inventory choices.
Excessive Pay Centre director Luke Hildyard mentioned “superficially” the earnings made sense given Microsoft’s sturdy monetary efficiency.
“Nonetheless, we’d additionally ask whether or not the additional $79 million on prime of $49 million final 12 months for somebody who’s already price lots of of hundreds of thousands, with extra money than they may spent over a number of lifetimes of absolute luxurious, is absolutely needed as a reward of incentive,” he advised the BBC.
“None of Microsoft’s success can be attainable with out staff, clients and wider society so maybe the proceeds of that success must be share slightly extra evenly,” he added.
Elsewhere in massive tech, Apple boss Tim Cook dinner earned $63.2m in 2023, whereas the chief government of the world’s most precious firm Nvidia, Jensen Huang, was paid $34.2m within the 2024 fiscal 12 months.
However none of them come near Tesla boss Elon Musk, whose pay packet may very well be price as much as $56bn.
