Sundar Pichai, the Google CEO recently handed the reins of the firm’s parent company Alphabet, has been granted $240 million in stock grants, with $90 million of them tied to Alphabet’s performance, according to a regulatory filing. Pichai will also start receiving a substantial raise Jan. 1, to $2 million a year, Alphabet said in a Securities Exchange Commission filing.
The massive compensation package was given in recognition of Pichai’s “expanded role as CEO of Alphabet and Google,” according to the filing. On Thursday, Pichai received $90 million in stock awards that will vest, becoming his property, by the end of 2022, depending on Alphabet’s shareholder returns compared to the S&P 100, the filing said. A special provision means this batch of Pichai’s stock awards could be doubled to a value of $180 million, or cut to zero, based on Alphabet’s performance, the filing said.
Pichai also received two other stock grants, of $120 million and $30 million, neither tied to performance but subject to his continued employment.
As CEO of Mountain View digital advertising giant Google, Pichai was earning a $650,000 salary. Earlier this month, Google co-founders Larry Page — who was Alphabet’s CEO — and Sergey Brin — Alphabet’s president — stepped down from the company, and Pichai was named CEO of Google and Alphabet.
While Pichai had not received stock grants since 2016, he raked in hundreds of millions of dollars in such awards in the previous years. His $200 million grant in 2016 followed a $100 million grant in 2015 and a $250 million grant in 2014, pushing his total take, counting the latest awards, toward $1 billion.
