Satya Nadella, Microsoft Chairman and CEO will be getting a whopping $79.106 million or Rs 665.15 crore paycheck in 2024, according to the tech giant’s revelation in its US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing dated October 24, 2024. Since becoming Microsoft’s CEO in 2014, the $79,106,183 compensation is the highest he has received, a 63 per cent increase over the previous year.
Nadella’s Compensation Package: Out of the $79.106 million compensation package, Nadella’s salary itself was just $2.5 million. Most of the compensation was based on stock awards worth $71,236,392. He also received $5.2 million coming under the title, ‘non-equity incentive plan,’ and $169,791 through ‘all other compensation.’
This comes despite Nadella’s personal request for a reduction in his compensation due to cybersecurity challenges, including the "Blue Screen of Death" incident in July of this year.
On July 19, 2024, numerous businesses and private users encountered a "Blue Screen of Death" on their devices, causing system shutdowns or restarts. The issue stemmed from a technical problem involving the U.S.-based cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, contracted by Microsoft.
In April, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security emphasized the need to prioritize security after breaches originating from Russian and Chinese sources. Nadella took personal responsibility for these incidents, requesting an adjustment to his compensation to support increased security funding. Microsoft subsequently undertook a comprehensive overhaul of its cybersecurity measures.
Microsoft cited several of Nadella’s accomplishments as justification for his increased pay, with bonuses reaching up to 142.16 per cent and capped at 200 per cent. These include his role in driving innovation in CoPilot, CoPilot+PCs, and the Copilot stack with "remarkable vision, agility, and speed"; leading responsible AI development and integrating it across Microsoft’s customer solutions alongside cloud resources; steering the organization through cybersecurity challenges; and successfully expanding offerings at gaming company Activision Blizzard, which Microsoft acquired for $68.7 billion in 2022.
