San Francisco --- Jack Dorsey has taken $1.40 (a little over Rs 107) as base salary for 2019 as Twitter CEO which is flat from 2018 - no increment or extra remuneration - as the billionaire begins donating $1 billion from his own pocket towards global COVID-19 relief.
In an SEC filing on Wednesday, the micro-blogging platform said its CEO earned $1.40 in 2019, flat from the year before but up from zero in 2017.
"At his own recommendation to the compensation committee and consistent with his compensation in 2018, Mr. Dorsey elected to forgo any compensation for 2019 other than a base salary of $1.40," Twitter said in an SEC filing.
The filing said this "is a testament to his commitment to and belief in Twitter's long-term value creation potential".
According to a rudimentary accounting, Dorsey's salary comes out to one cent for each of the 140 characters Twitter users were allowed to include in tweets when he resumed control of the company in 2015.
But perhaps Dorsey will soon be graduating to a new level, say a doubling of his salary to $2.80 as company has moved on from 140-character-capped tweets to its current 280-character limit.
According to the Forbes 'Real-Time Billionaires' list, Dorsey today is worth $3.9 billion, thanks to his other CEO role at financial services and mobile payment company Square.
Dorsey has set aside $1 billion from his equity in Square to support global relief efforts towards COVID-19.
"Simply: I own a lot more Square. And I'll need to pace the sales over some time. The impact this money will have should benefit both companies over the long-term because it's helping the people we want to serve," he tweeted recently.
Dorsey said he has funded $40 million in grants to many organisations with proven impact and efficiency in the past, mostly anonymously.
Dorsey and pop star Rihanna's non-profit organisation, The Clara Lionel Foundation (CLF), have set up a joint $4.2 million grant to help domestic violence victims amid the COVID-19 crisis.
Dorsey and CLF each committed $2.1 million for the grant meant to help address the current crisis for domestic violence victims in Los Angeles.
