Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google's parent company Alphabet, was paid a total of $226 million in 2022, boosted by stock awards worth $218 million. His base salary of $2 million remained unchanged from the previous year. Pichai is awarded shares every three years and was awarded over $280 million in 2019. Additionally, Alphabet spent almost $6 million on Pichai's personal security, according to a filing. Other executives, including Prabhakar Raghavan and Philipp Schindler, made about $37 million, awarded annually in shares.
Pichai's compensation makes him one of the world's highest-paid CEOs, which comes at an awkward time as Alphabet recently laid off 12,000 employees. In a memo, Pichai took full responsibility for the decisions that led to the layoffs and stated that the company had undertaken a rigorous review. In contrast, Apple CEO Tim Cook asked to have his pay cut for 2023 after huge packages in previous years caused controversy among shareholders. He is set to earn $49 million, about 40% less than in 2022.
Elon Musk was arguably the best-paid CEO last year after selling shares in Tesla worth almost $23 billion to help fund his takeover of Twitter. He doesn't take a salary or bonus from the EV maker.
Alphabet did not immediately respond to a request for comment.