Google CEO Paid $226 Million In 2022 Amid Tech Industry Troubles

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA — Google’s top executive was paid nearly $226 million in 2022, as the tech sector began to see widespread job losses and thousands of layoffs loomed in the company’s future.

Sundar Pichai, CEO and director of Google and parent company Alphabet, received a $2 million salary, about $218 million in stock awards and almost $6 million in other compensation, according to a recent filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Pichai’s compensation is roughly 808 times more than the company’s median 2022 employee pay of $279,802, the filing said.

He also received well over $100 million more than any of Google’s other highest-ranking executives last year. Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat earned about $24 million, Senior Vice President Prabhakar Raghavan received around $37 million, Chief Business Officer Phillipp Schindler got just over $37 million, and President Kent Walker was paid more than $24 million, according to the filing.

Alphabet’s stock dropped 39 percent in 2022, according to CNN Business, which noted that the company in January announced it would cut 12,000 positions or 6 percent of its workers.

As high as Pichai’s 2022 compensation numbers are, they came in lower than those from 2019, when he last received stock awards, CNN Business reported. That year, he was paid nearly $281 million, all but roughly $4 million of which was stock awards, an SEC filing from 2020 said. In 2019, Pichai’s compensation was 1,085 times more than the median employee pay of $258,708, according to the filing.