Facebook is paying $9 million to protect its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg.
The figure was revealed in a public filing that shows the social media giant increased the amount paid to secure Zuckerburg more than 50%, going from $5.8 million spent in 2016 to the $9 million figure last year. In all, Facebook has paid over $20 million to protect Zuckerberg since 2015. The expenses include things like private air travel, security personnel and security systems at his homes.
The expenses are necessary, the company says, because of Zuckerberg’s unique role within the company. “We require these security measures for the company’s benefit because of the importance of Mr. Zuckerberg to Facebook,” the filing states.
The “overall security program,” according to the filing, is a way to address “threats to his safety arising directly as a result of his position as our founder, Chairman, and CEO.”
Zuckerberg isn’t the only executive that Facebook pays big money to protect. The company also paid $2.7 million to cover the security expenses of COO Sheryl Sandberg. In addition to her role at Facebook, Sandberg is also a popular author and public speaker.
Both Zuckerberg and Sandberg have been making the rounds in recent months in an attempt at damage control in light of revelations of security breaches that involved data from tens of millions of Facebook users being harvested by a data research firm.
The filing comes only days after Zuckerberg spent ten hours being grilled by Congress on Capitol Hill for allowing user’s personal information to be stolen by Cambridge Analytica. Seventy million of the total 87 million people affected are from the United States. The rest are from countries like the United Kingdom and Indonesia.
Hefty security tabs for popular CEO’s aren’t entirely unprecedented. Apple CEO Tim Cook is reportedly only allowed to fly by private jet and had over $300,000 spent on his security needs last year.
Photo by Maurizio Pesce via Wikimedia Commons