Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, along with his top three leutinants, will get about $2 million in just salaries and bonuses, but cannot work on creating a rival to the social networking giant. This has been disclosed in Facebook’s amended registration document for its upcoming IPO. The company’s employment agreement does not allow Zuckerberg to “assist any person or entity in competing with the company, in preparing to compete with the Company or in hiring any employees or consultants of the Company.”
Similar clauses apply to chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg, chief financial officer David Ebersman and vice president (engineering) Mike Schroepfer, while they are employed with Facebook. The agreements are silent on whether these people, including Zuckerberg, can help create a rival of Facebook after leaving the company. In addition to in-cash salary and bonus, the pay package of the top four Facebook executives includes millions of dollars in form of stock options, performance pay and other payments.
Besides, the value of shares owned by Zuckerberg and many others at the company could also make them billionaires after the listing of Facebook, which is currently in the process of its $5 billion IPO. The company said that Zuckerberg, as president and CEO, would get $500,000 of base salary and up to 45% of this amount as bonus every year. While the basic wage would be paid in two equal payments a month, he can “over-achieve” the bonus target pursuant to the company’s bonus plan.