The Transport Guy: Twitter's top execs got another big payday last year as its stock tanked (TWTR)

Steve Kovach April 07, 2017 at 03:09PM

Twitter's stock is trading near all-time lows, a longstanding board member is leaving and some of the company's executives are getting hefty compensation packages worth tens of millions of dollars despite the business' struggles.

Welcome to another year in Twitter.

The company's annual proxy statement, released on Friday, is if nothing else, a study in contrasts between Twitter's suffering shareholders and the company's richly-rewarded executive suite.

Anthony Noto, Twitter's COO, got a total compensation package worth $23.77 million in 2016, according to the proxy, including a base salary of $496,000 and tens of millions of dollars worth of stock.

Noto was previously the CFO and was promoted to COO in November, a move that earned him an additional $12 million a year in stock, Twitter said at the time.

Adam Bain, who stepped down as COO last November, earned $29.3 million in 2016.

Twitter's top lawyer, Vijaya Gadde, took home a $498,000 base salary in 2016, up from $370,000 the year before. Her total compensation in 2016, including stock awards, totaled $9.8 million.

As for CEO and cofounder Jack Dorsey, who's also the CEO of the digital payments company Square, he once again took no salary in 2016. That's in the tradition of other founder CEOs such as Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and Alphabet's Larry Page, who take nominal $1 salaries.

Dorsey owns 2.4% of Twitter's total shares. 

Twitter also said that Peter Fenton will not "not be standing for re-election" to Twitter's board of directors at the annual shareholder meeting in May. Fenton, a partner at Benchmark Capital and an early investor in Twitter, has been on Twitter's board since 2009.

Shares of Twitter finished Friday's regular session at $14.29, just slightly above the all-time low of $13.73. 

Of course, the executive compensation is for Twitter's performance in 2016. 

So how did the stock do last year?

Twitter's stock fell roughly 30% in 2016. The Nasdaq rose 7% that year and the Dow Jones Composite Index grew 13%.

Here's a look at the rest of Twitter executive compensation for 2016:

SEE ALSO: Twitter cofounder and board member Evan Williams plans to sell up to 30% of his shares

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Twitter's top execs got another big payday last year as its stock tanked (TWTR) from Business Insider: Steve Kovach