One of the highest-paid executives of 2019 was Sundar Pichai of Alphabet, the umbrella company that owns Google. Pichai has been CEO of Alphabet for a brief period, taking office late last year after the exodus of Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. And now, new regulatory filings by the company reveal that its compensation is valued at about $ 281 million, thanks in large part to some generous stock awards.
Some of those prizes have yet to be paid in full and will fluctuate depending on Alphabet's stock market performance relative to other S&P 500 companies like Netflix, Apple, Amazon, Facebook and others, Bloomberg reports. In turn, that means Pichai could win a lot more, or less, from these awards, depending on the fortune of the company's stock market.
Now, however, the award in question is valued at approximately $ 120 million, while Pichai's other major stock award (which will also be awarded over time but is not directly linked to the company's stock returns) It is valued at around $ 150 million. These, plus Pichai's salary and various other forms of compensation, bring the total to nearly $ 281 million. The only other executive who has been more compensated in recent years is Tesla and Elon Musk of SpaceX, whose famous unorthodox and potentially hugely lucrative compensation plan for Tesla is entirely based on the award of shares in amounts based on the performance of the company. company, without a base salary from any kind for their work with the company.
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As if the stock grants weren't enough, as the introductions also reveal a pay rise along with Pichai's increased responsibilities as CEO, from $ 650,000 (only when he was Google's CEO) to $ 2 million. But it's largely those stock awards that make Pichai one of the highest-paid executives in history, and according to new filing regulations, Alphabet also had to reveal that it places him at more than 1,000 times the median salary of Alphabet employees, which, if you're curious, comes to $ 258,708.
This is not the first massive share award Pichai has received from Alphabet. In 2016, when he was named CEO of Google, he received stock acquisition awards valued at nearly $ 200 million.
Pichai, 47, has been with the company in one form or another since 2004, eventually helping develop the now-ubiquitous Google Chrome web browser before moving up the executive ladder.