Meta boosts top executives’ pay with stock options as AI race heats up

[NEW YORK] Meta Platforms has offered top executives stock options that could pay out hundreds of millions of US dollars and are tied to lifting its valuation six-fold to more than US$9 trillion, in a bid to retain talent and spur aggressive growth in the AI era.

The options are the social media giant’s first for its top brass and require steep stock milestones. They suggest Big Tech is rethinking incentives as it pours hundreds of billions of US dollars into data centres and departs from its long-standing reluctance to raise debt to gain an edge in the AI race.

Meta’s stock will have to rise at least 88.2 per cent from Tuesday’s (Mar 24) closing price of US$592.92 to US$1,116.08 to unlock the lowest-priced tranche of stock options.

A more than six-fold jump would be needed to unlock the most aggressive tranche, requiring the company’s shares to rise as high as US$3,727.12, regulatory filings late on Tuesday showed.

At that level, Meta would have a market value of more than US$9 trillion, much higher than Nvidia – currently the world’s most valuable company with a valuation of US$4.257 trillion.

Meta must meet the price targets by Feb 14, 2028, for the options to vest. If unsuccessful, Meta executives’ unvested options would become available to them in installments through Aug 15, 2030. The options will expire in March 2031 if they are unexercised.

Tesla has offered similar options to CEO Elon Musk that will pay out around US$1 trillion if some operational targets are hit.

Meta’s plan does not include its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg.

CFO Susan Li, technology head Andrew Bosworth, product chief Chris Cox, operations boss Javier Olivan, president Dina Powell McCormick and chief legal officer Curtis Mahoney are eligible for the options, the regulatory filings showed.

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All executives except McCormick and Mahoney, who joined Meta in January, will also receive an increase in restricted stock awards worth a total US$170 million at last close, which vest quarterly. Chief accounting officer Aaron Anderson will only receive restricted stock.

The company has offered huge pay packages, some worth hundreds of millions of US dollars over the years, to court top AI researchers to a new superintelligence team.

A Meta spokesperson said the pay packages represent a “big bet” and that they “will not be realised unless Meta achieves massive future success, benefiting all of our shareholders.” REUTERS