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Microsoft CEO Ballmer gets $25,000 raise as company profit plummets 17%

Saturday, September 19, 2009 · 6:59 pm · 56 Comments

In a preliminary filing Friday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Microsoft Corp. says it raised CEO Steve Ballmer’s salary by 4% in fiscal 2009 even as the software maker’s profit plummeted 17%.

Ballmer’s 2009 base salary rose to US$665,883 from $640,833.

Microsoft didn’t disclose Ballmer’s bonus for fiscal 2009, but last year it was $700,000.

MacDailyNews Take: According to Forbes, Ballmer has a net worth of $11 billion in 2009, or $7.6 billion more than Steve Jobs, which is considered by leading experts to be the ultimate proof that this sonuvabitchin’ life just ain’t fair.

And, oh yeah, BTW: Microsoft axes 5,000 jobs in first-ever companywide firings as revenue, profits miss expectations – January 22, 2009

And, now, the toast: May Steve Ballmer remain Microsoft CEO for as long as it takes!

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader "Brawndo Drinker" for the heads up.]

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Comment Feed

56 Comments

« Previous 1 2 3

Smarmy Bastard

Sunday, September 20, 2009 - 10:36 am · Reply

Well, now we know why they aced all of those jobs.
Smarmy Bastard

Sunday, September 20, 2009 - 10:39 am · Reply

Axed
shen

Sunday, September 20, 2009 - 10:40 am · Reply

heres the thing ron, if what nuts like you and glen beck bitched about where true, we would have already shot you. stfu and crawl back in your ultra right wing hole, the adults are talking about the salary of a tard….
almux

Sunday, September 20, 2009 - 12:59 pm · Reply

-This is because HDZune is sold out! Ballmer deserves it!

- Oh gosh, no! HDZune 16Gb is only sold out because they did half a dozen of these… And they found half a dozen ignorants who believed they where buying a new sort of iPod!

-Damn! These guys bought a collector without knowing?

-Yes, but they can’t count of getting much monney trying reselling it!
Mac-nugget

Sunday, September 20, 2009 - 2:36 pm · Reply

How much money is enough money. Capitalism, the pursuit of individual greed.
ron

Sunday, September 20, 2009 - 3:22 pm · Reply

“@ aka Christian,

Uh, I also apologize for that last one.”

Doesn’t sound very ‘Christian’ to me.
Bizarro Jeff

Sunday, September 20, 2009 - 3:24 pm · Reply

CEO’s have become grossly overpaid. I’m sure this move by Microsoft will be great for employee morale. Makes me think of when HP cut employee salaries by 5-20% earlier this year and CEO Mark Hurd bragged about taking a 20% pay cut off his base salary. It was nice of him to make that gesture, but the vast majority of his yearly income comes from bonuses and stock options, so it was like ordering everyone in the company shaved bald while he took a tiny little trim off the top.
Sir Gill Bates

Sunday, September 20, 2009 - 3:57 pm · Reply

@ ron,

I’m not gettin’ your drift, bud.
therepguy

Sunday, September 20, 2009 - 7:00 pm · Reply

It time the question is asked….

Just who or what did Steve Ballmer find in the executive restroom/bedroom that warrants keeping this jackass in office?

This childish man is driving Microsoft into a hole the likes of which has never been seen before and yet the boards just keep rewarding him for his bad practices.

I for one has long ago exchanged any Microsoft stock that I may have had for Apple stock and have been well rewarded for doing so!

But is it not now the time for the rest of the stock holders to either dump Steve Ballmer or dump there shares in Microsoft’s?

Better yet, is it not time for the board to return any remaining profits to the stockholders themselves?

A mass rejection of Steve Ballmer by stockholders seems the only way to trump any insider information that Steve Ballmer might have hidden away in his personal portfolio.

Keeping Steve Ballmer in place after Steve Gate retired had to be the worst move that Gates ever made!
Mr. Reeee

Monday, September 21, 2009 - 12:00 am · Reply

Whoda thunk that a career felcher could ever make in the upper 6 figures. How much does that pay by the gulp?
absent

Monday, September 21, 2009 - 2:02 am · Reply

Monkeyboy keeps raping micro$haft and we luv him for it.

MW. brown! how zune can it get?
Brulek

Monday, September 21, 2009 - 5:48 am · Reply

we should all kick in a few bucks and keep ballmer at the helm. He’s doing a wonderful job killing off microsh*t and that deserves a nice bonus I believe. Long may it last! Well not too long.
Jamie

Monday, September 21, 2009 - 6:19 am · Reply

I’ll personally pay Ballmer $10 out of my own pocket to keep him in charge of Micro$oft.

Anything to keep him as CEO, for as long as it takes (which won’t be long, believe me).
MacRaven

Monday, September 21, 2009 - 9:31 am · Reply

Man, where can I get a job that pays me more and more for the dumber my decisions are, rewards me for fostering poor copies of other’s innovations, and allows unlimited control over a company that drops like a stone in it’s market growth?

Hope Ballmer retires so I can apply. I can do all that from sitting on a Yacht out in some ocean. Though there would be some stress: I’d have to hold myself back from thinking any creative thoughts, and block out all intelligent reasoning and statistics. But I’ll do my best.

And I might need a tongue transplant from Kiss’ guitarist Gene Simmons. I’ll need to look credible as Ballmer’s successor for the publicity photo on MDN news page.
Demon

Monday, September 21, 2009 - 10:12 am · Reply

The The Board had no choice but to give Ballmer a raise as he’s doing a fine job at coping Apple. So, the company lost some sales and they are tossing money down the crapper faster then a 2 year tosses a fit. Ballmer is doing a fine job! If the board of directors had not given him a raise it would have been a vote of no confidence in the job he was doing and Microsoft shares would have tanked straight away. If Microsoft keeps loosing ground on profits and keeps having pressures placed on it’s profit margin the board can keep the biggest investors at bay by continuing to show support for Ballmer by giving him a raise and a fat bonus each year this will hold off the biggest investors for a few more years (that is the MSFT board of director’s hope anyway) while the board searches for options or prays that Ballmer gets lucky or something. You can only dump money down blackholes for so long before the investors get nervous (I think MSFT has poured too much of the company’s profits down the drain for investors and I think they are already nervous with Microsoft’s first ever lay-offs, planning on spending Billions on retail stores that are never projected to earn a profit, making a deal with with Yahoo that insures that Microsoft makes no money on search advertising, the Zune skidding to just continued market share losses and the Xbox 360 red ring of death failures continuing and now estimated at over 59.87% of all units will experience the issue and most units will have the issue even after being remanufactured, even the newest Xbox 360 will have the issue at a rate of over 40%) will and the Ballmer raise has pushed some of them too far. Those pushed to far will start moving their money out of the company. It will take just a few of the long time big institutional investors to start pulling out to spark a big sell off. Once the sell off starts I think it will tank the Microsoft share price down to the less then $5.00 price and it could slide all the way to less then a $1.00. Any such slide in Microsoft stock price would of course wipe out huge fortunes for those that are holding and don’t get out of MSFT stock quickly.
The strategy that a smart investors with a large stake in MSFT will adopt today is over the next few months or less they will start thinning their MSFT holdings with a plan of being de-invested in MSFT in less 3 to 4 months. Larger investors would need to be much more aggressive because waiting to get out will only end up damaging more then a reputation it will damage the financial fortunes as well.
Considering that over the years owning MSFT has been like watching paint dry. MSFT it’s not a growth stock it’s been just a safe neutered place to hold the investors money. But, in looking at the companies direction and their current path the wheels are about to fall off and the only place the stock is headed is down. The only question is how far, to less then $5.00 or less then a $1.00.