According to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday, Facebook dramatically increased spending on security for CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his family, TechCrunch reported.
Zuckerberg draws a $1 annual salary from the company but receives other types of compensation—namely, the millions of dollars the company spends keeping him safe.
According to the filings, Facebook compensated Zuckerberg $22,554,542 total in 2018, $2,597,320 of which was for Zuckerberg’s travel on a private jet. The remainder—just about $20 million—went toward security costs for Zuckerberg and his family. By comparison, Facebook compensated Zuckerberg $9,101,965 in 2017 and $6,015,431 in 2016 for security costs.
Facebook faced scandal after scandal in 2018, from revelations of data misuse by now-defunct data analysis firm Cambridge Analytica, to data breaches affecting millions of users, to the spread of fake news around the world, to poor workplace culture.
Zuckerberg himself has been a target of this scrutiny, putting him at increased risk, the company said.
“We believe that Mr. Zuckerberg’s role puts him in a unique position: he is synonymous with Facebook and, as a result, negative sentiment regarding our company is directly associated with, and often transferred to, Mr. Zuckerberg,” the company claims in the SEC filings, which covered the year ending Dec. 31, 2018.
The company breaks down this type of compensation in the filings:
Under Mr. Zuckerberg’s overall security program, we pay for costs related to personal security for Mr. Zuckerberg at his residences and during personal travel, including the annual costs of security personnel for his protection and the procurement, installation, and maintenance of certain security measures for his residences.
The company also approved a “pre-tax allowance of $10 million to Mr. Zuckerberg to cover additional costs related to his and his family’s personal security.”
Zuckerberg’s security costs are high compared to other tech CEOs, Business Insider reports. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi was compensated just over $2 million for security last year, Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos was compensated $1.6 million for security in 2018.
H/T TechCrunch
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