Microsoft CEO receives a 63% salary increase despite a request for a reduction

Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella earned $79.1m (£61m) last year, a 63% increase compared to his compensation the previous year.

That was despite Nadella requesting a cut of one portion of his salary due to cybersecurity flaws at the tech giant — resulting in him receiving $5 million less than he otherwise would have.

As is the case with many technology companies, Microsoft has cut thousands of jobs this year, including many Games section.

But in A Proxy statement The company’s revenues grew 16% in the year ending June 30, 2024, the board said in its submission to the US financial regulator.

“Mr. Nadella agreed that the company’s performance has been very strong,” Microsoft’s compensation committee wrote in a letter to shareholders.

She added that he asked them “to consider deviating from established performance metrics and reducing his cash incentive to reflect his personal responsibility” for a number of cyber attacks.

One of these attacks was I mentioned In July 2023 by Microsoft, hackers gained access to email accounts of about 25 organizations, including government agencies.

Microsoft said the attack originated in China, although the Chinese embassy in London described this as “disinformation.”

The financial period extends until June 30, 2024 – a few weeks before the presidential elections Major internet outage It affected computers running Microsoft Windows, causing chaos around the world.

Although this was not a cyberattack, Microsoft apologized for it later in July Another outage Which resulted from a cyber attack.

The compensation committee said it cut Nadella’s cash pay by more than half, to $5.2 million.

This represents less than 7% of his total salary.

The bulk of his salary, $71.2 million, was made up of stock options.

Luke Hildyard, director of the Center for High Pay, said the dividend made sense “on the surface” given Microsoft’s strong financial performance.

“However, we might also question whether the extra $79 million on top of last year’s $49 million for someone already worth hundreds of millions, with more money than he could spend over the course of multiple lifetimes of absolute luxury, is really necessary as a reward for… BBC: “The Motivation.”

He added: “No Microsoft success would be possible without its workers, customers and the wider community, so perhaps the proceeds of that success should be shared more evenly.”

In the field of big technology, Apple CEO Tim Cook earned $63.2 million in 2023, while the CEO of the most valuable company NVIDIA in the world, Jensen Huang, earned $34.2 million in fiscal year 2024.

But none of them come close to Tesla CEO Elon Musk, whose salaries could be valuable Up to $56 billion.