Tech giants spend huge sums of
money on their personal security
Large tech groups have dramatically increased their spending on personal security as tech chiefs play an increasingly public role in American politics.
The British newspaper
Financial Times, reported that major technology companies in the United States doubled their spending in 2024 on protecting their senior executives in light of the escalating security risks threatening them against the backdrop of their increasing presence in the political and media scenes.
The newspaper
revealed that personal protection expenses for the heads of
ten major technology companies, including Meta, Alphabet
Nvidia, and Blantyre
exceeded $45 million, with increases exceeding 10 percent year-on-year.
Security experts say spending
and concerns about threats to tech company bosses have increased this year following high-profile attacks in the United States targeting corporate executives.
I've never seen a greater threat
- or concern than today," said James Hamilton
- founder of Hamilton Security, a former FBI agent
- and former vice president of Gavin de Becker & Co.
which provided
special security services to Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
James Hamilton added, "People focus on the company's leader as a representative of everything that is wrong with the world".
The influx of
online support for Luigi Mangione
who was accused of shooting United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson last year, has raised widespread fears among business leaders of new attacks and forced companies to reevaluate their security protocols, according to security experts.
They also
- pointed to another wave of
- demand after four people were shot
- dead in a New York office building in July.
The attacker
targeted the NFL over a complaint he had against it, according to city officials.
"The first half of this year was more busy for us than all of 2024," said Joe Lasorsa, founder of Lasorsa Security & Executive Protection.
He added that
the company received five times the number of risk assessment inquiries in the past few months and recorded a "significant increase" in attacks on executives' homes.
Tech company bosses are particularly vulnerable because of their fame as well as public hostility over corporate profits, layoffs, data misuse and their growing political role since the 2024 presidential election campaign.
The technology sector saw the largest increase in companies implementing security measures for executives, with a 73.5 percent increase in those receiving benefits from 2020 to 2024, according to a report by Equilar.
Meta has long been
- the largest security spender among big tech companies
- and Facebook's parent company paid more than $27 million in 2024
- up from $24 million the previous year, to cover the personal security costs of
- Mark Zuckerberg and his family, including at their homes and while traveling.
Meta's costs
are much higher than its counterparts because the group agreed to provide security directly to members of the Zuckerberg family, not just to the CEO himself.
As CEO
and founder of Facebook, Zuckerberg retained majority voting power, giving him greater influence over board decisions than his counterparts.
Other prominent figures
such as Bezos and Musk pay large sums for their own security, which is separate from the publicly announced spending by their companies.
Extremely high
- and advertised wages
- and stock bonuses also make tech
- company managers more vulnerable.
The boom in technology stocks
over the past few years has paid billions of dollars to some executives, with Balantir CEO Alex Karp's personal wealth rising by about $7 billion in 2024.
Karp
- received death threats
- after receiving threats related to
- his company's contracts with the Israeli army.
Karp was spotted at public events surrounded by four bodyguards, while the company declined to comment.
The company's Silicon
Valley offices were also vandalized during protests over Ballantyre's contracts with U.S. immigration authorities, according to people familiar with the matter.
The newspaper explained that
the wealth of Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, rose to more than $153 billion, as the chip manufacturer became the first company worth $4 trillion last month.
NVIDIA
- spent $3.5 million on
- Huang's security in 2024
- up from $2.2 million in 2023.
A person close to Nvidia said Huang's security increased as his fame rose, which was strengthened by his prominent role in pressuring the Trump administration over AI chip exports to China and the group's rising stock price.
Huang has emerged
as one of the most prominent faces of the hype surrounding the AI boom, and is known for interacting with his fans, which may increase his risk of infection.
For his part
Elon Musk has expanded his security protection to
an unprecedented extent
- according to the Financial Times, as he founded a private company called
- Foundation Security, and sometimes travels with a team of
- about twenty security personnel.
Although Tesla stated that
- it spent only $500,000 on protecting Musk in 2024
- the newspaper explained that these numbers do not include
- expenses borne by his other private companies such as SpaceX and xAI.
Amazon has been spending $1.6 million annually on protecting its founder Jeff Bezos for more than a decade, while CEO Andy Jassy's protection budget rose from $986,000 to $1.1 million last year.
The newspaper attributed this trend to increasing criticism directed at Bezos regarding his personal wealth and the company's record regarding workers' rights.
The Financial Times confirmed that
the violent incidents expanded the scope of security hedges in other sectors
outside
- the field of technology
- including the media
- the banking sector and the defense industries.
She reported that American companies removed personal photos and biographies of their CEOs from websites, and imposed stricter travel policies.
In the aviation sector, for example, Lockheed Martin imposed on its CEO the exclusive use of private aircraft.
The newspaper added that
Apple reduced the protection expenses of its CEO Tim Cook from $2.4 million in 2023 to $1.4 million in 2024, while Palo Alto Networks reduced its spending on its president, Nikesh Arora, from $3.5 to $1.6 million.
The newspaper also reported that
the danger is no longer limited to physical threats
but has extended to :
the digital sphere, as security companies are now dealing with increasing risks related to deepfake techniques for sounds and images that are used to pass financial fraud operations that are difficult to track.
The newspaper concluded that
the founders of digital currency companies, who operate in a volatile
and ambiguous market, were among the first to adopt strict security measures
against
- the backdrop of kidnapping incidents
- and extortion attempts targeting
- them in the United States and Europe.
It quoted
a BlockDayman official as saying that there is an escalation in the "ongoing negative narrative about technology pioneers", stressing that "reducing public appearances has become the key to survival".