Meta executives’ annual bonuses just got a bit bigger • The Register
After another round of mass layoffs and reports of slashed stock options for remaining employees, Meta has like clockwork opted to reward its top executives with a substantial bonus increase.
The Facebook giant revealed in a government filing that its Compensation, Nominating and Governance Committee (CNGC) approved a target annual bonus increase for its top executive officers bar CEO Mark Zuckerberg. The bonus was raised from 75 percent of base salary to a whopping 200 percent, effective with the 2025 annual performance period.
“Following this increase, the target total cash compensation for the named executive officers (other than the CEO) falls at approximately the 50th percentile of the Peer Group Target Cash Compensation,” the filing notes. It added that prior to the adjustment, those executives were only at or below the 15th percentile in total cash compensation compared to their peers.
According to Meta’s April 2024 proxy statement [PDF], CTO Andrew Bosworth’s base salary was $945,000. His actual eligible earnings were slightly lower due to the timing of his raise. However, factoring in a 75 percent target bonus and Meta’s 150 percent company performance multiplier for 2023, his total bonus payout amounted to about $1.05 million.
Assuming Bosworth’s salary remains the same, and Meta’s company performance percentage stays at 150 percent in 2025, the new 200 percent target bonus would push his bonus to nearly $3 million. That’s before any stock-based compensation and other add-ons. And he’s not even the highest-paid member of Meta’s named executive team.
For balance’s sake, and some might find this hard to swallow but, $3 million annual cash compensation for a CTO in Bosworth’s position is about right for Silicon Valley; it’s nothing outrageous, relatively speaking. The vast majority of his pay package is in shares; in 2023 for instance, he was awarded more than $20 million in stock. The salary, like for many in his role, is the cherry on top of an enormous cake.
Some of that bonus cash, though, might be coming from Meta’s latest round of layoffs, which saw around 3,700 people – about five percent of its workforce – axed this month. The cut reportedly targeted low performers, and followed a year in which the biz reported a net income of $62.36 billion, a 59 percent year-over-year increase.
This comes reports surfaced this week that Meta has cut back on its yearly distribution of stock options by 10 percent to most staff, though we do note that the corp’s share price has climbed 10 percent in the past month, and 46 percent for the past year.
We’ve reached out to Meta to confirm reports of the stock option cut.
Zuckerberg started 2025 by describing Meta’s plans for the year as “intense,” with massive AI investments lined up as the Facebook maker shifts focus beyond its struggling metaverse ambitions.
Following OpenAI’s announcement that it and its partners plan to invest up to $500 billion in an AI infrastructure project dubbed Stargate, Zuckerberg announced his own AI spending plans – Meta would pour $60 billion or more to expand its AI infrastructure in 2025.
“This is a massive effort, and over the coming years it will drive our core products and business, unlock historic innovation, and extend American technology leadership,” Zuckerberg said of the effort. Hopefully it will prove more successful than that Metaverse shift for the sake of those executives’ bonuses. ®
