Microsoft CEO and chairman Satya Nadella sells half of stock shares, nets about $285M

By Paul R. La Monica, CNN Business

It looks like Tesla’s Elon Musk isn’t the only high profile CEO getting rid of shares in the company they run. Microsoft chairman and CEO Satya Nadella has shed more than half of his stake in the software giant in the past week.

Nadella sold nearly 840,000 shares of Microsoft just before Thanksgiving, netting him about $285 million in proceeds, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. He still owns more than 830,000 shares of Microsoft, which are currently worth about $280 million.

It makes sense that Nadella would take some money off the table. After all, Microsoft stock has been a stellar performer this year, soaring more than 50%. Home Depot is the only Dow stock that has done better.

Microsoft has enjoyed strong sales and earnings thanks to the cloud leadership position it established since Nadella took over as CEO in 2014. The company is now worth more than $2.5 trillion. Only Microsoft rival Apple has a higher market value.

And Nadella has been compensated handsomely for his successful tenure at Microsoft.

According to Microsoft’s most recent annual shareholder proxy statement filed with the SEC, Nadella earned a salary of $2.5 million this fiscal year and has a total annual compensation package, which includes stock awards and cash incentives, of nearly $50 million. Nadella earned more than $40 million during the past two fiscal years as well.

Gold in the cloud for Microsoft: Profit jumps 24%, beating Street

Under Nadella, Microsoft has bulked up its Azure cloud unit. The company is also minting money from its core Office 365 suite of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and other business software as well as from its LinkedIn corporate social networking unit and Xbox gaming division.

Microsoft was not immediately available for comment about Nadella’s stock sale. But the company said in statements to other media outlets that Nadella sold the shares “for personal financial planning and diversification reasons.”

The stock sale also comes shortly before Microsoft’s home state of Washington is set to implement a 7% long-term capital gains tax.