Yahoo Finance Boeing’s sacked CEO gets $90 million on the way out
In December last year, embattled airline Boeing dumped its CEO Dennis Muilenburg for his failure to deal with the Boeing 737 MAX crisis.
The company’s reputation took a sharp nose-dive after failing to cope with the fall-out of two fatal crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia that killed 346 people.
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But the ousted CEO will walk away with a cool US $62 million to leave his job.
According to regulatory documents filed last Friday, Muilenburg will walk away with US $62 million in compensation, pension benefits and shares.
Muilenberg is entitled to previous long-term compensation, worth US $29.4 million, and also holds shares worth another US $4.3 million, CNN reported.
Then there’s pension and deferred compensation he’ll receive worth US $28.5 million. All up, that’s US $62.2 million, or AU $90.12 million.
If he also chooses to exercise his stock options, which would have been included as part of his contract, Muilenburg has the right to buy an extra 72,969 Boeing shares – for a previously-agreed price of US $5.5 million – that are now worth US $24 million.
Muilenburg will lose other shares and options to the tune of US $14.6 million, which he hasn’t yet vested, according to CNN.
However, few people are thrilled about Muilenburg’s exit package.
Zipporah Kuria, whose father died in the second crash, said: "It is incredibly heart wrenching to see the man at the heart of our loss walk away with a reward.”
US Senator Elizabeth Warren also slammed the compensation package.
"346 people died. And yet, Dennis Muilenburg pressured regulators and put profits ahead of the safety of passengers, pilots, and flight attendants. He'll walk away with an additional $62.2 million. This is corruption, plain and simple," she tweeted.
Earlier this week, Boeing released over 100 pages of internal emails and memos from employees that mocked the design and development of the 737 MAX, with one describing it as “designed by clowns, who in turn are supervised by monkeys”.
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