Athira Sethu
Kochi, 25 October 2024
Satya Nadella, the chief executive officer of Microsoft, saw his fiscal 2024 pay surge to almost ten times what he earned a year ago. His total reward increased 63% to $79.1 million.
Most of that gain was attributed to stock awards, which nearly quintupled to about $71 million. Last year, he earned around $39 million in stock awards.
Meanwhile, this is when the market cap of Microsoft hit over $3 trillion. The company’s stock prices surged by 31.2% simultaneously.
High stock awards for Nadella imply that things are going well for Microsoft, especially on artificial intelligence (AI) front. The corporation has been heavy in its investments on OpenAI, a team that produced ChatGPT. This is the investment that brought out the giantness of AI in the market.
However, the cash bonus Nadella received for the year was only $5.2 million. And that is less than the $10.7 million he could have received. He opted to reduce his bonus after several cybersecurity problems were experienced during the year. He wanted to take responsibility for those issues.
Other tech executives received similarly hefty paychecks. Consider Tim Cook, who runs Apple. He pocketed $63.2 million in fiscal 2023. Under chief executive Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s fiscal 2024 sum was $34.2 million.
Basically, Nadella’s pay zoomed greatly based on the higher market value of shares and Microsoft’s favorable position within the AI market. At the same time, he lessened his cash bonus based on security issues concerning the safety of the employees at the HQ and indicated seriousness with such matters.
