[STEAM] Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella Gets $30 Million Pay Raise Amid Year of Massive Gaming Layoffs

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The CEO of

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, Satya Nadella, is getting a pay raise. A $30 million one.

According to a

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published earlier this week and

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, Nadella's compensation for the fiscal year 2024 totaled $79,106,183. $2.5 million of this was his base salary, $71.24 million was stock awards, $5.2 million was non-equity incentive plan compensation, and the rest was a mixture of other types of compensation.

This is significantly higher than last year, when Nadella's compensation totaled $48.5 million. While Nadella's base salary remained flat between years, he saw a massive jump in the past fiscal year in stock awards, going from $39.24 million last year to $71.24 million this year.

Per the filing, the ratio of total annual compensation of Nadella to the median employee at

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was 408 to 1.

Notably, the filing points out that this number actually incorporates Nadella taking a pay cut. The "cash incentive" portion of his pay was reduced at Nadella's own request due to a security breach in 2023 where a

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through

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. Per the filing, without this reduction, Nadella's non-equity incentive plan compensation would have totaled $10.66 million instead of $5.2 million.

"Since the Board of Directors appointed Mr. Nadella as the third Chief Executive Officer in its history in 2014,

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has nearly tripled revenue to $245.1 billion, nearly quadrupled net income to $88.1 billion, and more than quadrupled diluted earnings per share to $11.80," the filing reads. "In addition to another year of consistently strong financial performance, Mr. Nadella and his leadership team have positioned

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to continue to drive performance for years to come."

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's 2024 fiscal year took place from July of 2023 to June of 2024. During that *******, the company acquired Activision Blizzard for $69 billion, a point that's celebrated in the

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filing. However, the company also

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in early January. A few months later, it

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, Hi-Fi Rush developer Tango Gameworks, and ***** off others within Bethesda. And already this quarter,

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has

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in a move which Xbox head Phil Spencer attributed directly to the acquisition.

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's first quarter earnings call for fiscal 2025 will take place next week, providing an update on the company as a whole as well as the gaming division.

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has been doing well on the strength of Azure, Cloud, Office, and its other divisions, and the Activision Blizzard acquisition has provided it with a significant boost to gaming revenue. However, hardware sales have been dipping over the last year (a problem also faced by Xbox's rivals) and non-Activision Blizzard content sales have been relatively flat over the last year.

Photo by Dimas Ardian/Bloomberg via Getty Images.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to [email protected].

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