It’s difficult to accurately assess the value of feeling safe, but one of the world’s richest people priced it around $23 million.
While Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg continued to take a base salary of $1 in 2020, he collected “all other compensation” of $25.3 million – almost all of that toward security – according to Facebook’s Friday proxy filing with the SEC.
Why the big number for Zuckerberg’s personal safety?
The proxy documented annual company reviews revealed potential threats to Zuckerberg “as a result of the high-profile nature of being our founder, CEO, Chairman, and controlling shareholder.”
It’s usually good to be king, but the leader of a company so visible finds a good deal of heat.
“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. Mr. Zuckerberg is one of the most-recognized executives in the world, in large part as a result of the size of our user base and our continued exposure to global media, legislative, and regulatory attention,” the proxy said.
The security allocation for 2020 was reported to be for Zuckerberg’s residences and for travel for himself and his family. The base number was up to $13.4 million, an increase of $3 million from 2019, the proxy said.
The $10 million on top of that was pre-tax money reported to be for added security personnel, equipment, services and other security-related costs.
Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg was paid $7.6 million for her security, part of her “all other compensation” of $8.5 million. She earned $22.5 million last year, including a base salary of $918,000 and stock awards of $14.4 million.
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