Google CEO Sundar Pichai saying NO to $58.1 million worth shares sparks retirement rumours

Google CEO Sundar Pichai has enough wealth that he has declined bonus of Rs 405 crore. Pichai says that he is getting paid enough. But Pichai’s decision to turn down $58.1 million worth of shares has also sparked rumours around his departure as chief executive officer of Google. Pichai is among the high-paid CEOs for many years as he is the man running one of the largest technology companies in the world.

Apparently, Pichai is Following in the footsteps of LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner. To recall, Weiner had passed on his stock awards reportedly worth about $14 million to his employees. Last year, Pichai topped the list of Forbes’ Most Reputable CEOs in the world. This year, Pichai  is not even in the top 10 anymore. Google’s CEO’s decision to refuse $58.1 million worth of shares might bring him some of his lost glory.

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It is a fairly common corporate practice for top executives like Sundar Pichai to be paid in stocks. Ever since Pichai collected his last stock award back in 2016, his annual salary package has been $650,000 along with added perks like personal security and Pichai currently has 51,249 unvested Google shares worth $58.1 million. And by the time Google’s parent organsation Alphabet revises Pichai’s salary this year, his stocks will be vested.

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This decision of Pichai has also led to some rumours. Report has it that Google CEO might be heading towards his retirement as “clearly there’s a very little retentive effect left for Pichai,” as per expert. According to Bloomberg report, Pichai may have turned down the share because he finds his compensation more than adequate. 

Earlier this year, one Google worker asked during a staff meeting why Pichai was paid hundreds of millions of dollars when some employees were struggling to make ends meet in Silicon Valley. Google has also been the subject of intense criticism from outside the company, from multiple antitrust investigations around the world to growing scrutiny over Google’s access to personal data, power and its size.