Arda Kukukkaya | Anadolu | getty images
meta Stock options are being granted to key leaders in an effort to retain talent as the company comes under increasing pressure to strengthen its position in artificial intelligence.
According to an SEC filing released Tuesday evening, executives in the incentive plan include CFO Susan Lee, technology head Andrew Bosworth, chief product officer Christopher Cox and operations chief Xavier Olivan. CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who is worth more than $200 billion, is not part of the plan.
A high strike price and relatively short timeline to achieve goals is indicative of Meta’s urgency to show progress in the rapidly growing AI market. While OpenAI, Anthropic and Google After introducing popular AI models and features, Meta has struggled to find a coherent strategy, even as it plans to spend up to $135 billion in capital expenditures this year.
“This is a big bet,” a Meta spokesperson said in a statement. “These pay packages will not be realized unless Meta achieves massive success in the future, which will benefit all of our shareholders. Like all stock options, there is only value if the share price meaningfully exceeds the exercise price, and in this case, this should be over a highly aggressive 5-year timeframe.”
Meta’s share price is down about 4% over the past year, lagging all of its other megacap tech peers. MicrosoftWhich has fallen by 5%. Meanwhile, Alphabet jumped 73%, boosted by the success of its Gemini AI portfolio.
For the first tranche of options to be paid, Meta’s stock would have to reach $1,116.08, which is 88% higher than Tuesday’s closing price and equivalent to a market capitalization of about $2.82 trillion based on current shares outstanding.
The next tranche requires a stock price of $1,393.87. The price increases significantly for each additional tranche, with the highest being $3,727.12, which would value the company at more than $9 trillion. The most valuable company in the world today NVIDIA At about $4.3 trillion.
Meta spent 2025 overhauling its AI unit after the release of the Llama 4 family of AI models failed to attract third-party developers. As part of its AI revamp, Meta invested $14.3 billion in Scale AI in June and hired the startup’s CEO Alexander Wang to become its chief AI officer and lead its AI unit, now known as Meta Superintelligence Labs.
CNBC reported in December that Meta is pursuing a new Llama successor and Frontier AI model, codenamed Avocado.
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