The pay package awarded to Alphabet Inc. Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai soared to $226 million in 2022, boosted by a triennial stock grant, making him one of the world’s highest-paid corporate leaders.
The stock award portion of his pay amounted to $218 million, according to a filing from the Google parent company Friday. He received a total of $6.3 million in compensation in 2021, when he didn’t receive the grant, and his salary has remained steady at $2 million the past three years.
The 50-year-old CEO has been navigating a more competitive industry, with AI products such as the chatbot ChatGPT from startup OpenAI threatening to undermine Google’s dominance in search. A broader tech slowdown also has taken a toll on the company, with its shares sliding 39% in 2022. Still, they’ve mounted a comeback in 2023, rising 19%.
Pichai’s stock award comes on a three-year schedule, and he received a similarly sized package in 2019. That year, the executive was awarded $281 million.