Cha-Ching! Google Chief Scores Huge Payday

Google Chief Executive Sundar Pichai is getting an early holiday present: the promise of one of the biggest corporate pay increases in recent history for taking over parent Alphabet Inc., according to The Wall Street Journal citing regulatory filing.

Pichai, who took over as Alphabet CEO this month after co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin stepped down from active management of the internet giant’s parent, will get a base pay of $2 million and is also being granted $240 million in stock awards if he meets performance targets, the company said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing on Friday.

The compensation package is the second largest equity grant for a new CEO in the Russell 3000 in the past decade. Only Apple Inc. Chief Executive Tim Cook has been rewarded more handsomely, when he received equity totaling $376 million in 2011, according to Equilar.

Pichai, 47 years old, takes over Alphabet at a time when the company is grappling with many regulatory and political threats that have affected the search giant and the wider tech industry. The company is also trying to catch rivals Amazon.com Inc. and Microsoft Corp. in the hot area of providing cloud-computing services.

Alphabet has become one of the world’s most valuable public companies. Its more than $933 billion market cap puts it ahead of online retail giant Amazon.com Inc., though it trails Apple and the No. 2 Microsoft Corp.