Satya Nadella’s pay hits $96.5M amid AI boom
Microsoft paid Chief Executive Satya Nadella $96.5 million for the 2024-2025 financial year, marking his largest compensation package since he assumed leadership in 2014. The board credited his work in positioning the company at the forefront of artificial intelligence development. About 90 percent of his earnings came through stock awards while his base salary remained at $2.5 million. His previous year’s total reached $79.1 million.
Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood received $29.5 million and commercial business head Judson Althoff earned $28.2 million. Company shares climbed 23 percent this year as the Azure cloud platform maintained its competitive edge against rivals. Nadella transformed Microsoft into a cloud computing and AI-focused enterprise after taking charge from Steve Ballmer.
The Hyderabad native earned his engineering degree from Mangalore University in 1988 before completing graduate studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He joined Microsoft in 1992 and advanced through multiple divisions. His investments in OpenAI started with $1 billion and expanded to $10 billion as ChatGPT gained widespread adoption across consumer and business markets.
