San Francisco, October 25: Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella received a 63% hike in his pay package, leading to a higher salary in the Financial Year 2025. Satya Nadella's salary creased package reached USD 79.1 million, which is higher than the previous year's salary. It would be the highest salary paid to Nadella since 20 when he received USD 84 million when he became the CEO of Microsoft. 

The reports said that Microsoft would pay Satya Nadella this largest compensation amid the company's advancement in artificial intelligence (AI) and investment in OpenAI, which helped it gain a strong market position and enhanced the CEO's stock-based earnings. Satya Nadella Pay Package Hiked to 63% Amid Rise in Stock, Microsoft CEO To Take Home INR 665 Crore: Reports.

According to reports, around 90% of Satya Nadella's pay comes from stock awards, which increased to 71 million (around INR 596 crore) from 39 million (around INR 327 crore) the previous year. This growth marks how well the company has performed in the market for a year. Currently, it is among the most valued companies, boasting a USD 3 trillion value competing against NVIDIA and Apple. Microsoft shares reportedly rose 31.2% during this fiscal year ending on June 30. 

Reports said that the remarkable growth and rise in Nadella's compensation were due to tech giant initiatives like AI and genAI, which drove massive growth to the company. Despite getting paid a huge salary package, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella requested a reduction in his "cash incentive" due to the rising threats of cybersecurity. Due to breaches, the initially set USD 10.66 million pay was reportedly brought down half to USD 5.2 million.

The data breaches were reportedly witnessed by Russian and Chinese threat actors. Satya Nadella reportedly highlighted his personal accountability for the breaches attempted, which in turn drew criticism from the United States government. Recently, Microsoft witnessed a global outage via CrowdStrike's software update, which affected the company's shares. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg Joins USD 200 Billion Club, Becomes 4th Richest Person in the World.

Beyond this, several breaches over the year prompted Microsoft to align with US agency recommendations and upgrade its security measures. The pay package was even higher than that of the rival's CEO. Apple CEO Tim Cook was paid USD 63.2 million in 2023, and NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang received USD 34.2 million in compensation.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Oct 25, 2024 05:35 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).