Twitter's Anthony Noto Had Top Pay of $73 Million Last Year

By Scott Austin 

Anthony Noto, the former banker who left his lucrative career at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to become financial chief at Twitter Inc., was the top earner at the social media company last year.

Mr. Noto had compensation of $72.8 million in 2014, including stock awards valued at $63.1 million and options of $9.5 million, according to Twitter's annual proxy statement filed Monday. The stock is "restricted, " meaning Mr. Noto can't sell some of the shares until 2018. Twitter had revealed the elements of Mr. Noto's compensation when he was hired in July.

Twitter put Mr. Noto in charge of its finances after he helped steer the company's November 2013 IPO while at Goldman.

His compensation was about three times the pay of his predecessor, Mike Gupta, who made $24.6 million, almost all of it from stock awards, in 2013. Mr. Gupta is now the head of Twitter's strategic investments.

For the second year in a row, Chief Executive Dick Costolo received no equity awards. He was paid $13,892 in salary, reflecting a self-imposed pay cut he requested in August 2013. Mr. Costolo, however, owns more than eight million Twitter shares worth about $413 million.

The third-highest earner was Twitter's engineering chief, Alex Roetter, who received an $18.8 million stock award as part of total compensation of $19.1 million.

Others listed in the filing include general counsel Vijaya Gadde, whose pay was reduced nearly in half to $7.9 million, and Kevin Weil, who made $13 million last year after gaining a more prominent role as head of product.

Twitter is scheduled to release its first-quarter earnings on April 28. In the fourth quarter, Twitter's user growth slowed but its revenue nearly doubled to $479 million, ahead of expectations.

Write to Scott Austin at [e-mail]

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