In a move that isn’t as surprising as you would think, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg took a huge pay cut in 2013. He went from having a salary that exceeded 500K in 2012 all the way down to a measly $1 in 2013. His total compensation for the year was $651,165 which includes bonuses and other pay. That number pales in comparison to the $2 Million he hauled in for 2012. But just in case you’re trying to decipher whether or not to feel bad for Zuckerberg, this move is extremely common in the tech world. Other CEO’s like Larry Page, Steve Jobs, and Bill Gates have been known to make “the right gesture” by reducing their salaries to extremely small numbers (Jobs and Page also took $1).
This is a move that’s typical of CEOs who are worth billions and billions of dollars because of their shares in their respective companies. So before feeling bad for Zuckerberg, please remember that he’s still the 22nd richest person in the world according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, with a net worth of nearly $27 billion. And just in case you’re wondering, he owns 426.3 million shares of Facebook. A senior columnist at Yahoo! Finance says, “It’s sort of a gesture to the world to say ‘we’re not going to sit here and loop the company that we’re trying to run for the long term at the same time that we are stacking up wealth.’
And while we have no reason to feel bad for Mark Zuckerberg and his pay cut, the young billionaire should also be praised for his generosity. He was named the most charitable person in 2013 having donated 18 million of his shares to charity last year.
Recently Facebook has been no stranger to spending money. In late February Facebook paid $19 billion to buy the WhatsApp messaging service, which is equivalent to $42 per user. A month later Facebook announced the $2 billion purchase of Oculus VR, which makes virtual reality headsets for gaming. At the time, Zuckerberg said he hopes to expand Oculus beyond gaming into a platform that can be used in classrooms, medical offices and more. After the purchase of Oculus, Facebook’s stock declined though it’s now on the rise again.
“We feel we’re in a position where we can start focusing on what platforms will come next to enable even more useful, entertaining and personal experiences,” Zuckerberg explained in a memo about the acquisition.
What Facebook will do next is anyone’s guess but one thing is for certain. They are looking to extend their growth and utilize newer and faster technologies to their full potential.
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