Budgets for safety for presidents of 10 large technology companies analyzed by the “Financial Times”, increased to over $ 45 million in 2024. Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Nvidia and Palantir increased their budgets for protection by over 10 percent. year on year.
Security experts say that expenses and fears related to threats to the heads of technology companies increased this year after loud attacks in the US on the management.
“I've never seen such a big threat or fears than today” – James Hamilton, founder of Hamilton Security, said for “FT”, former FBI agent and former vice president of Gavin de Becker and Associates, a company providing private protection services for the head of Tesla Elon Musk and the founder of Amazon Jeff Bezos. “People focus on the company's leader as the personification of everything that is bad in the world” He added.
According to security experts, a wave of internet support for Luigi Mangione, accused of fatal shooting in 2024, the head of United Healthcare Brian Thompson, caused widespread fears among business leaders before new attacks and forced companies to re -assess their security protocols.
They also mentioned another wave of demand after four people were fatally shot in a New York office building in July. According to the city authorities, the attacker attacked the National Football League.
Extremely high and publicly disclosed bonuses for shares in profits also expose the heads of technology companies to special risk. The boom on the technology exchange has resulted in multi -billion payments for some directors over the past few years. The assets of the president of Palantir, Alex Karp, increased by almost $ 7 billion in 2024.
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Carp received death threats, citing the work of a group dealing with data analysis for the Israeli army, and the company's offices in the Silicon Valley were devastated during protests against Palantir contracts with the American immigration authorities, according to people familiar with the case. Carp has 24 -hour protection and was seen with up to four bodyguards at the same time. Palantir refused to comment.
The property of the president of Nvidia, Jensen Huang, increased to over $ 153 billion, and the chip producer became the first company worth $ 4 trillion last month. The NVIDIA company spent $ 3.5 million on Huang's security in 2024, compared to $ 2.2 million in 2023.
