Shrinkage: Bill and Ballmer's bonuses shrivel

You’ve gotta weep for these poor billionaires. Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer saw their salaries go up slightly, but watched their bonuses shrink by $50,000 in 2006. The top two at Microsoft got paid $616,667 in salary and received a $350,000 bonus - down from $400,000 in 2005.

Ballmer also got some $9,482 for "all other compensation" - while Bill Gates got $2,112.

A proxy statement, given to the Securities and Exchange Commission, says: "The compensation of Messrs Ballmer and Gates reflects their status as significant shareholders of the company. Their salaries and total compensation are significantly below competitive levels for the information technology industry and large market capitalisation US companies. The average CEO salary and bonus for the comparison group the company uses were $1.329m in base salary and $3.216m in bonus."

The two should be able to scrounge and scrape by on their below par salaries though - the Forbes Rich list estimates William Gates III is worth $50bn and Steve Ballmer's net worth is $13.6bn.

Bill and Ballmer's bonuses shrink [The Register]