TSMC CEO pledges over 30% incentive bump as AI profits soar

TAIWAN Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) chief CC Wei told staff that they will see more than a 30 per cent bump in their profit-sharing payouts this year on average, responding after some voiced concerns over their incentive plans online.

TSMC, considered a linchpin of global AI infrastructure, will expand its employee incentive programme as profits surge.

At a town hall on Wednesday (May 27), Wei said he is confident that Taiwan-based employees on average will see more than a 30 per cent year-on-year increase in their profit-sharing bonus, better than the prior year’s increase, said a person familiar with the matter. The person asked not to be named as the company event was private.

Wei’s comments underscore how the prime beneficiaries of a historic boom in AI development and spending are coming under increasing pressure to share more of their rapidly expanding income.

This week, Samsung Electronics’ main union scored an agreement for the world’s biggest memory chipmaker to dole out some US$27 billion in bonuses to workers after labour leaders threatened to organise a strike.

The TSMC CEO’s pledge followed days of online discourse about the company’s quarterly bonuses, with some anonymous posts questioning the size of the increases.

TSMC did not respond to a request for comment.

Over more than a decade as leader at TSMC, Wei has emphasised stability and long-term thinking in his remarks about company strategy.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, he repeatedly said that TSMC’s pricing would be strategic rather than opportunistic. His approach has proven successful, as the company has managed to elevate its gross margin to an enviable 66 per cent this year.

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Hsinchu-based TSMC reported NT$572.5 billion (S$23.3 billion) in earnings for the January-to-March quarter, more than double what it brought in over the same period two years earlier.

TSMC’s overall employee profit-sharing pool grew roughly in line with its bottom line last year. The company allocated about NT$103 billion for the programme in 2025, up 46.6 per cent from the year before. The chipmaker in its articles of incorporation pledged to set aside no less than 1 per cent of its annual profit for its employee incentive programme.

The timing of the TSMC town hall coincided with a tentative end to a months-long confrontation between South Korea’s chip titan Samsung and its largest worker union.

Unlike Korea’s most valuable company, TSMC does not have an organised labour union, but its employees had started to express their frustrations publicly in online forums.

Samsung and its union agreed to a deal this week that will deliver bonuses of roughly US$340,000 for each person in its chipmaking group. BLOOMBERG