According to a report issued by Protocol, Silicon Valley tech giants spent approximately USD 46 million to protect their C-suite. The founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, is at the top of the list of the highest personal protection costs for the heads of high-ranking global companies. Apparently, last year Facebook spent a whopping USD 31 million on personal security for Zuckerberg and Sandberg, the company’s respective CEO and COO.
In fact, out of that amount, USD 23.4 million was allotted personal security for Zuckerberg, while Sandberg’s got “just” USD 7.5 million. Actually, this staggering amount represents a USD 3 million increase in comparison to 2019 – when Facebook’s personal security for Zuckerberg amounted to USD 20 million.
Facebook attributed this increase in Zuckerberg’s protection costs to new Covid-19 protocols, as well as extra protection due to the US presidential election. Additionally, the amount included a USD 10 million tax allowance, as well as USD 13.4 million for personal security for Zuckerberg.
In fact, Protocol’s report comes as Facebook faced several accusations recently, including spreading false information about COVID-19 vaccines, according to what the White House announced last week.
The list of security expenditures for 2020 includes 11 people:
- Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg: USD 23.4 million
- Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg: USD 7.5 million
- Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet, the founder of Google: USD 4:5 million
- Lyft founder John Zimmer: USD 2.06 million
- Larry Ellison, founder of Oracle: USD 1.71 million
- Evan Spiegel, founder of Snapchat: USD 1.67 million
- Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff: USD 1.31 million
- Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos: USD 1.6 million
- Uber’s head of transportation Dara Khosrowshahi: USD 849,000
- Lyft CEO Logan Green: USD 599,000
- Apple CEO Tim Cook: USD 740,000
Facebook Hires Atlanta Close Protection Firm Hawque Protection Group
Facebook recently selected Hawque Protection Group (HPG) to protect their leaders and private events, globally. HPG’s diverse team possesses high levels of experience in law enforcement, executive protection, elite military unit protection and deep technology products to create a safe and secure environment.
“Our HPG team is very excited to have been selected to work with Facebook as they were very intentional around wanting to diversify their vendors this year. Our mission is to make communities, our clients and their assets safe through innovation of technology and security professionals,” said HPG President and Co-founder, Chris Rich.