Courtesy Mail Online
Facebook has spent more than $16 million protecting Mark Zuckerberg and his family in just five years after ‘specific threats’ to the 31-year-old.
The firm disclosed the staggering amount spent on security for Zuckerberg – the fourth richest person in the world – in a regulatory filing on Wednesday.
It reveals that, in 2015, $5 million was invested in bodyguards and other protective services to ensure the safety of its founder and CEO.
The substantial sum is in fact a mark down from the $6.2 million spent on his security in 2014.
The year before, he had $3.3 million-worth of security.
Millions have also been spent on private travel, as well installing alarms in his $10 million home in San Francisco’s well-heeled Mission District.
Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer, also received an above-average security package: the firm issued $1.2 million worth of security measures to protect her last year.
In contrast, Apple spent just $209,000 on CEO Tim Cook’s security last year.
Oracle CEO Larry Ellison was portioned $1.5 million to secure his home in 2015.
Amazon spent $1.6 million on Jeff Bezos’s security in 2015.
Zuckerberg, who is worth $35.7 billion, has 16 bodyguards working on rotation to protect him, his wife Priscilla, and their daughter Maxima.
Though he famously earns a $1-a-year salary, he owns nearly 422 million shares of Facebook stock, which rakes in his millions.
His security entourage has enraged his neighbours, who wrote an open letter in January slamming his guards for taking up space in the residential street.
A letter written by neighbours and obtained by Buzzfeed was distributed to residents of Liberty Hill, a neighbourhood adjacent to Dolores Park.
The letter claimed that Zuckerberg’s security team is ‘permanently’ and ‘illegally’ occupying ‘desirable parking spots’ in the area with two silver SUVs.
It urged neighbours to complain to the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) about the vehicles and contact Zuckerberg’s ‘residential security manager’, Tim Wenzel.
‘I think we’ve all tried to be as patient and civil as possible during the very long construction, the noise, the trash, the blocking of streets, etc,’ the letter began.
It continues: ‘Now that all that circus is done, we are left with 2 silver SUV’s permanently occupying desirable parking spots.
‘It goes without saying that living close to Dolores Park and the awesome neighbouring districts already creates a challenge when it comes to street parking, so the 2 spots that are illegally being held for Zuckerberg only makes matters worse.’
Facebook maintains there are ‘specific threats’ against the CEO that warrant such a scale of protection.
The regulatory filing on Wednesday defends the figure.
‘Because of the high visibility of our company, our compensation & governance committee has authorized an “overall security program” for Zuckerberg to address safety concerns due to specific threats to his safety arising directly as a result of his position as our founder, Chairman, and CEO,’ it reads.
‘We require these security measures for the company’s benefit because of the importance of Zuckerberg to Facebook, and we believe that the costs of this overall security program are appropriate and necessary.’
The 31-year-old was the subject of an Daesh threat video earlier this year, which featured his face littered with bullet holes. Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s CEO, also appeared in the video.
It is not clear whether this video is one of the threats that has driven Facebook to pour millions into Zuckerberg’s security detail.
In the 25-minute video, the militants claim they control more than 10,000 Facebook accounts and 150 Facebook groups – and warn they will retaliate to any attempt to drive them off the sites.
The threat came after both Zuckerberg announced an intense push against terrorist users on their social networks.
Facebook has vowed to follow Twitter’s example in shutting down accounts that have terrorist links.
Sheryl Sandberg also called on users to ‘attack’ any terrorist-linked posts with ‘likes’.
