According to a proxy statement, it was reported that Facebook spent $8.9 million on CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s personal travel and security expenses last year. Alongside his travel and security expenses, Zuckerberg’s annual salary was only $1 without any additional bonuses or stock awards.
According to Variety, as of March 31, “Zuckerberg owned 401.5 million shares of Facebook stock, currently worth $6.6 billion controls 59.9% of the board voting power of Facebook.” It’s no secret that the Facebook CEO is a wealthy individual, but it’s interesting to see a new compensation package from years prior. Mark Zuckerberg’s compensation package was a sharp increase from the previous year (54 percent) and most of it was reportedly spent on ensuring his safety, as well as providing transportation via a private jet.
In a regulatory filing, Facebook commented the following statement regarding the 54 percent rise in Mark Zuckerberg’s compensation plan:
“ all costs related to personal security for Mr. Zuckerberg at his residences and during personal travel pursuant to his overall security program and costs related to personal usage of private aircraft… Because of the high visibility of our company, our compensation & governance committee has authorized an ‘overall security program’ for Mr. Zuckerberg to address safety concerns due to specific threats to his safety arising directly as a result of his position as our founder, Chairman, and CEO… We require these security measures for the company’s benefit because of the importance of Ms. Sandberg to Facebook.”
Mark Zuckerberg is currently focusing on other issues, as he testified before Congress earlier this week. He spent nearly 5 hours, in 2 separate sessions, answering questions about Facebook’s mishandling of data that ultimately ended up on Cambridge Analytica’s servers, the same firm who was responsible for conducting work on Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
