04/25/2024 – 0:38
Mark Zuckerberg received the lowest salary of all Meta employees in 2023, with his measly $1 in compensation – even though the Big Tech boss raked in an impressive $24.4 million in “other compensation.”
According to a proxy statement, most of this “other compensation” covered Zuckerberg's security costs.
While the Securities and Exchange Commission filing did not disclose how much of the money was spent on protecting the 39-year-old CEO, it was revealed last year that the Facebook owner increased his budget to keep himself safe to $14 million. Up from US$10 million in previous years.
The 2023 increase, which marked a 40% increase in Zuckerberg's pretax personal security allowance, came during the executive's so-called “year of efficiency,” when the company laid off 13% of its workforce, or about 11,000 employees, when Zuckerberg sought to make Meta “leaner.”
Zuckerberg can use the money to pay for “additional staff, equipment, services, home improvements” and other security-related needs, Meta said at the time.
Meanwhile, the other funds from Zuckerberg's $24.4 million compensation went toward “costs related to personal use of private aircraft,” according to the document previously reported by Fortune, which also noted that Zuckerberg received $1 in salary “at your request”.
He also “does not participate in our Bonus Plan nor has he received any equity awards,” the proxy statement said.
Meta also included that the average annual compensation among its more than 67,000 employees, excluding Zuckerberg, was a staggering $379,050.
By comparison, the average tech worker earns between $35,000 and $120,000, depending on the role, according to Fortune, citing data from Indeed.
Despite earning just $11 in salary since 2013, Zuckerberg has seen his wealth increase by more than $47 billion so far.
According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Zuckerberg is the third richest person in the world, with a net worth of $176 billion – behind only French luxury fashion mogul Bernard Arnault and Amazon's Jeff Bezos, who they have US$220 billion and US$202 billion, respectively.
The Menlo Park, California-based company brought in $134.9 billion in revenue in 2023 due to its popularity among more than 4 billion monthly users — about 3 billion of which come from Facebook alone.
The bulk of Zuckerberg's profitable year so far comes from his roughly 13% stake in Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, according to Bloomberg.
Year-to-date, Meta's share price has also soared more than 43%, closing Wednesday at $493.50.
Zuckerberg isn't the only CEO with a $1 salary:
Tesla's Elon Musk, Yelp chief Jeremy Stoppelman, and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin also earned just $1 a year at their respective companies.
Former Apple executive Steve Jobs also requested a salary of just $1 during his tenure at the iPhone maker and before his death in 2011.
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