The CEO of Microsoft, Satya Nadella, is getting a pay increase. A $30 million one.
In line with a proxy filing revealed earlier this week and spotted by NBC, Nadella’s compensation for the fiscal yr 2024 totaled $79,106,183. $2.5 million of this was his base wage, $71.24 million was inventory awards, $5.2 million was non-equity incentive plan compensation, and the remainder was a mix of different sorts of compensation.
That is considerably greater than final yr, when Nadella’s compensation totaled $48.5 million. Whereas Nadella’s base wage remained flat between years, he noticed a large leap previously fiscal yr in inventory awards, going from $39.24 million final yr to $71.24 million this yr.
Per the submitting, the ratio of whole annual compensation of Nadella to the median worker at Microsoft was 408 to 1.
Notably, the submitting factors out that this quantity truly incorporates Nadella taking a pay reduce. The “money incentive” portion of his pay was decreased at Nadella’s personal request resulting from a safety breach in 2023 the place a Chinese espionage group hacked government email accounts by means of Microsoft. Per the submitting, with out this discount, Nadella’s non-equity incentive plan compensation would have totaled $10.66 million as an alternative of $5.2 million.
“Because the Board of Administrators appointed Mr. Nadella because the third Chief Government Officer in its historical past in 2014, Microsoft has almost tripled income to $245.1 billion, almost quadrupled web revenue to $88.1 billion, and greater than quadrupled diluted earnings per share to $11.80,” the submitting reads. “Along with one other yr of constantly sturdy monetary efficiency, Mr. Nadella and his management staff have positioned Microsoft to proceed to drive efficiency for years to come back.”
Microsoft’s 2024 fiscal yr passed off from July of 2023 to June of 2024. Throughout that interval, the corporate acquired Activision Blizzard for $69 billion, some extent that is celebrated within the Microsoft submitting. Nonetheless, the corporate additionally laid off 1,900 workers from its gaming workforce in early January. Just a few months later, it closed Redfall developer Arkane Austin, Hello-Fi Rush developer Tango Gameworks, and laid off others inside Bethesda. And already this quarter, Microsoft has laid off one other 650 gaming workers in a transfer which Xbox head Phil Spencer attributed on to the acquisition.
Microsoft’s first quarter earnings name for fiscal 2025 will happen subsequent week, offering an replace on the corporate as a complete in addition to the gaming division. Microsoft has been doing effectively on the energy of Azure, Cloud, Workplace, and its different divisions, and the Activision Blizzard acquisition has supplied it with a major increase to gaming income. Nonetheless, {hardware} gross sales have been dipping during the last yr (an issue additionally confronted by Xbox’s rivals) and non-Activision Blizzard content material gross sales have been comparatively flat during the last yr.
Photograph by Dimas Ardian/Bloomberg through Getty Pictures.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Yow will discover her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Obtained a narrative tip? Ship it to rvalentine@ign.com.