Microsoft boss Satya Nadella on $84 million pay package- after claiming women should not ask for 'bad karma' pay rise

Nadella sparked series of angry comments after claiming women should have "faith in the system" and not ask for a rise

Satya Nadella (Microsoft)

Microsoft boss Satya Nadella, who sparked anger after he claimed women should not ask for a pay rise because it is not "good karma", is on a pay package worth $84 million.

Nadella received a basic salary of $918,917 for the fiscal year ended June and a $3.6 million bonus, according to a regulatory filing. He was also given $79.8 million in the form of long-term stock awards when he took over Microsoft.

These include a one-time retention award worth $13.5 million and a long-term performance-based stock award of $59.2 million pegged to Microsoft's stock performance relative to other companies on the S&P 500.

Speaking at a cloud computing event on Monday, he also addressed the controversy surrounding his comments on female employees in the tech industry earlier this month, where he claimed women should not ask for a pay rise.

Instead, Nadella argued they should trust the company they work for and have "faith" in the system. He claimed not asking for a raise was “good karma” that would help a boss realise the employee in question could be trusted.

"It's not really about asking for the rise, but knowing and having faith that the system will actually give you the right raises as you go along," he added. "It’s good karma. It will come back."

Nadella later apologised for his "inarticulate" remarks, followed by a longer blog-post in which he argued the tech sector must try harder to close the gender pay gap and women should not be afraid to ask for pay rise if they deserve one.

Silicon Valley, the global hub for technology, remains a mostly white, male-dominated industry. In Microsoft's case, only 29 per cent of its global work force is female. That is in line with rivals Google, Facebook and Yahoo.

Nadella was named chief executive in February and is only the third chief executive in the company's history after Steve Ballmer and co-founder Bill Gates.