Zuckerburg’s world: Salary $1 but earnings at $3 bn
Like many company founders who have gotten wealthy off their early stakes, Zuckerberg asked Facebook to limit his annual salary to $1. Besides that token sum, he also received perquisites valued at $653,164.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg reaped a $3.3-billion gain last year by exercising stock options in the social networking company that he founded in a Harvard University dorm room.
The windfall saddled Zuckerberg with a huge tax bill, even though he limited his Facebook salary to just $1, according to regulatory documents filed on Monday.
It marks the second straight year that Zuckerberg has realised a huge gain on the holding that he has accumulated in Facebook since he started the company in 2004.
In 2012, Zuckerberg made $2.3 billion off his stock options.
Zuckerberg, 29, now has exhausted his supply of stock options after exercising 60 million of them last year a price of 6 cents per share.
He then sold 41.35 million shares for $55.05 apiece in December, primarily to pay for his tax bill on the gains.
Like many company founders who have gotten wealthy off their early stakes, Zuckerberg asked Facebook to limit his annual salary to $1. Besides that token sum, he also received perquisites valued at $653,164. All but $3,000 of that amount went toward Zuckerberg’s bills for personal travel on chartered jets.
Excluding stock option gains, Zuckerberg’s total compensation last year plunged 67% from $2 million in 2012.
Even after selling and donating so much Facebook stock, Zuckerberg still owns 426.3 million Facebook shares currently worth $25.7 billion.