Meta, the parent company of Facebook, has said in a filing that it is increasing its spend on the personal security of chief executive and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg by $4m (£3.3m) to $14m, at a moment when the company has cut thousands of jobs in what Zuckerberg has called the “year of efficiency”.
Meta’s board declared that the 40% increase was “appropriate and necessary under the circumstances” and was in place “to address safety concerns due to specific threats to his safety arising directly as a result of his position as Meta’s founder, chairman, and CEO”.
Zuckerberg is allowed to use the money to pay for “additional personnel, equipment, services, residential improvement” and other safety-related needs.
His personal security costs were last reviewed in 2018 when he received $10m from the company, according to the filing.
The tech mogul’s salary is just $1 a year – but his earnings are far more. Zuckerberg ranks as the 16th richest person in the world on the Forbes billionaire list due to his shareholdings in Meta. In 2021 he received compensation from the company worth $27m.
The rise in security spending for its CEO comes at a difficult time for Meta. It delayed the finalising of budgets to prepare a fresh round of job cuts, according to the Financial Times. The company dismissed 11,000 employees, the equivalent of 13% of its workforce, in November.
On a call to analysts earlier this month, Zuckerberg said: “Next, we’re working on flattening our org structure and removing some layers in middle management to make decisions faster.”
He also mentioned that the company would be “more proactive about cutting projects that aren’t performing” – but ruled out any reduction in funding to the company’s virtual reality space the Metaverse, despite the division in charge of the project reducing the company’s overall operating profit by $13.72bn in 2022.
When announcing the job losses in November last year, Zuckerberg said falling ad revenue, increased competition and a wider economic downturn meant the company had to downsize.
In an email to staff, Zuckerberg said: “I want to take accountability for these decisions and for how we got here. I know this is tough for everyone, and I’m especially sorry to those impacted.”
Meta, once valued at $1 trillion, lost 70% of its value in 2022. In July, the company reported its first ever fall in revenue.
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