Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella gets $30M raise — while company fired nearly 2,500 workers

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella was awarded a $30 cardinal salary raise — 63% much than what he earned past twelvemonth — moreover arsenic nan Windows shaper slashed its workforce by 2,500 people.

Stock awards for Nadella, who earned $48.5 cardinal successful 2023, climbed to astir $71 cardinal from $39 cardinal a twelvemonth earlier, according an SEC filing.

The raise comes aft Microsoft shed 1,900 group from its gaming workforce pursuing nan company’s $69 cardinal acquisition of Activision Blizzard.

Months later, it shuttered different gamer firm, Arkane Austin, and handed retired pinkish slips to 650 employees.

Nonetheless, Nadella was rewarded pinch a important windfall that would person been higher had it not been for cybersecurity breaches that sewage nan attraction of Congress.

Nadella asked for a salary trim that shaved $5.5 cardinal disconnected of his full compensation for fiscal twelvemonth 2024 because of cyberattacks that rocked nan package giant, which nan authorities has alleged tin be traced backmost to Russia and China.

A rate inducement that Nadella was successful statement to receive, which was tied mostly to gross and operating income targets, was slashed from $10.66 cardinal to $5.2 million, according to nan filing, first cited by CNBC.

Microsoft said successful its filing that Nadella asked nan company’s compensation committee to return nan information breaches into relationship erstwhile determining his pay.

“Mr. Nadella agreed that nan Company’s capacity was highly strong, but reflecting connected his individual committedness to information and his domiciled arsenic nan CEO, asked nan Board to see departing from nan established capacity metrics and trim his rate inducement to bespeak his individual accountability for nan attraction and velocity required for nan changes that today’s cybersecurity threat scenery showed were necessary,” nan committee wrote.

Lawmakers successful June grilled Microsoft President Brad Smith astir nan tech giant’s information practices and ties to China a twelvemonth aft alleged China-linked hackers spied connected national emails by hacking nan firm.

The hackers accessed 60,000 State Department emails by breaking into Microsoft’s systems successful nan summertime of 2023, while Russia-linked cybercriminals separately spied connected Microsoft’s elder unit emails this year, according to nan company’s disclosures.

Microsoft, nan world’s biggest software-maker, is besides a cardinal vendor to nan US authorities and nationalist information establishment.

Microsoft’s business accounts for astir 3% of nan US national IT budget, Smith said astatine nan hearing.

Lawmakers grilled Microsoft for its inability to forestall some nan Russian and Chinese hacks, which they said put national networks astatine consequence contempt not utilizing blase means.

In May, Nadella circulated a memo to labor titled “Prioritizing information supra each else.”

“If you’re faced pinch nan tradeoff betwixt information and different priority, your reply is clear: Do security,” Nadella wrote.

Microsoft said that it would return into relationship employees’ contributions to cybersecurity erstwhile determining compensation.

Despite nan hacks, Nadella has delivered for investors. Since Jan. 1, Microsoft’s banal has risen by much than 16% — though it still lags nan S&P 500, which has yielded gains of much than 23% year-to-date.

Microsoft is scheduled to study its latest quarterly net adjacent week.

The statement position among Wall Street analysts is that nan institution notched a 3% year-over-year summation successful net per stock arsenic good arsenic a 14% emergence successful revenues compared to nan aforesaid play a twelvemonth ago.

As of Friday, Microsoft, pinch a marketplace capitalization of $3.2 trillion, was nan 3rd astir valuable institution successful nan world down Nvidia, which leapfrogged Apple.