Microsoft has given CEO Satya Nadella a pay package worth $84.3 million, most of which are in the form of long-term stock awards.
A regulatory document that Microsoft filed showed that Nadella received a salary of $918,917 and a bonus of $3.6 million for the financial year that ended on June 30. Nadella was also given stock awards with a value of almost $79.8 million, with most of the payments to be spread out over several years.
According to Microsoft, the actual salary of Nadella for the previous financial year is $11.6 million, excluding the long-term stock awards worth up to $52.9 million and the one-time $13.5 million retention award that he received upon his promotion to the position of CEO.
Over $7 million of the stock awards were already paid to Nadella in the concluded financial year.
These valuable stock awards were created to keep Nadella with Microsoft as the company went on a search for a new CEO. The stock awards also gave Nadella long-term incentives to remain as CEO of Microsoft.
Nadella, who was named the company's CEO in February, is only the third CEO in the history of Microsoft.
Microsoft revealed in the regulatory document that the company had to adjust its pay structure for the CEO because Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, the former CEOs of the company, were not given stock awards as part of their compensation. This was due to the fact that the two men were already among the largest shareholders of the company.
Also included in the pay package for Nadella is a long-term stock award based on performance, which holds a value of $59.2 million. Nadella, however, will not receive the stocks until the year 2019, and that will be dependent on how the stocks of Microsoft perform compared to other companies listed in the Standard & Poor's 500 index. He will be receiving a more modest but still lucrative $18 million as total target compensation for the financial year 2015.
Nadella recently received criticism for comments that he made regarding the pay gap between genders. Speaking at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing in Phoenix, Nadella said that women should not seek pay raises but rather trust that the system would provide them with an increase in their salaries.
"It's not really about asking for a raise, but knowing and having faith that the system will give you the right raise," Nadella said. He has since apologized and continued to do so in a San Francisco event on Oct. 20.
"The last week and a half or so have been a learning and humbling experience for me. I was wrong in the way I answered that one question," he said.
