In a regulatory statement on Thursday, Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN.O) said it did not give Chief Executive Andy Jassy any additional shares in 2022, narrowing the salary disparity between him and other employees.
The report indicated that it granted more than $40 million to the newly appointed CEOs of e-commerce and cloud operations at 2022 share values, while Jassy received an equal sum from his earlier grants.
For months, Amazon has battled inflation and recession worries, forcing customers to cut back. As a result, the corporation reduced 27,000 employees and stock awards to minimize costs.
Jassy said in his annual shareholder letter on Thursday that Amazon’s main e-commerce and cloud computing businesses still have space to develop and that the cost cutbacks will pay off.
He said the business was investing in new areas like generative artificial intelligence, a term since OpenAI’s ChatGPT launched and ignited a battle for supremacy between Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) and Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O).
“LLMs (large language models) and Generative A.I. are going to be a big deal for customers, our shareholders, and Amazon,” he added, citing Amazon’s machine learning chips and CodeWhisperer service for writing computer code.
According to the filing, in 2022, Amazon’s typical employee globally earned $34,000 compared to Jassy’s $1.3 million income and perks. In addition, Amazon stated Jassy would need a decade to obtain a stock award in 2021. Therefore, the ratio was 1 to 6,474.
Unions and U.S. lawmakers have long attacked CEO pay relative to employees, notably at Amazon. Amazon reported a median full-time U.S. salary of $41,762.
The business claimed Jassy’s 2021 award, worth $214 million, was “intended to represent most of his compensation for the coming years” and had no intentions to issue further stock in 2023 or last year.
The bundle has plummeted since Amazon granted it. In 2022, Jassy’s award and previous grants lost $148 million due to the company’s stock decrease.
The report indicated he received $31.9 million from previous grants that vested last year.
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