Large tech groups such as Meta, Alphabet and Nvidia have significantly increased their spending on personal security as tech bosses play a more public role than ever in US politics and confront hostility towards corporate executives.
Security budgets for CEOs of ten leading tech companies, analyzed by the Financial Times, rose to more than $45 million in 2024. Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Nvidia and Palantir all increased their protection budget by more than 10% per year.
Security experts say spending and concerns about threats against tech bosses only increased this year after high-profile US attacks targeting corporate executives.
“I have never seen more threats or concerns than I did today,” said James Hamilton Security founder, former FBI agent and former vice-president of Associates, James Hamilton Security, who provides private security services to Tesla boss Elon Musk and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
“People are sticking to company leaders as all the expressions that are wrong in the world,” he added.
Online support for Luigi Mangione, who was charged with the fatal shooting of United Healthcare Chief Brian Thompson last year, forced her to reevaluate security protocols © Kyle Mazza/Anadolu/Getty Images
According to security experts, Luigi Mangione’s charges, who was accused of the fatal shooting of United Healthcare chief Brian Thompson last year, prompted him to force a reevaluation of business leaders and security protocols in the new attack.
They also cited another wave of demand after four people were fatally shot in a New York office building in July. City officials said the attackers targeted the National Football League more than the complaints he had with the organization.
“The first half of this year was busier than everything in 2024,” said Joe Lasorsa, founder of executive protection company Lasorsa Security & Associates.
The company has received five times more inquiries about risk assessments in the past few months, recording a “significant increase” of attacks on executive homes, he added.
Since the 2024 presidential campaign, the technology chief has been particularly vulnerable as well as public hostility towards corporate profits, layoffs, data misuse and increased political roles, as well as fame.
According to an Equilar report, the tech sector has made a 73.5% jump to companies that received profits from 2020 to 2024, with the biggest increase in executive-oriented security measures.
Meta has long been the highest security bills from major technology companies. Facebook parents paid more than $27 million in 2024, starting from $24 million the previous year, including personal security for Mark Zuckerberg and his family during their homes and travel, according to disclosures.
META paid more than $24 million in 2024. From $24 million the previous year, personal security for Mark Zuckerberg and his family was during their homes and travel, according to disclosures, according to ©Seongjoon Cho/Bloomberg
The cost of meta is much higher than its peers as the group agrees to provide security directly to members of Zuckerberg’s family, not just the executives themselves.
As both Facebook’s CEO and founder, Zuckerberg maintains a majority vote, and has a greater influence on board decisions than his counterparts.
Other well-known figures like Bezos and Musk pay large sums of money for their own security separate from publicly disclosed spending.
Very high and published reported pay and shared awards also make high-tech bosses particularly vulnerable. Over the past few years, the tech inventory boom has led to billions of dollars in payments to some executives.
Palantir CEO Alex Karp’s personal fortune surged nearly $7 billion in 2024. Karp is under death threat citing the work of the Israeli military and data intelligence group for its Silicon Valley offices.
Karp has 24/7 security details, viewed with four bodyguards at once. Palantir declined to comment.
The wealth of Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang rose to more than $153 billion last month as chipmakers became the first $400 million company. Nvidia spent $3.5 million on Huang’s security from $2.2 million in 2024.
A close to Nvidia said Huang’s security increased as his fame rose, boosted by lobbying the Trump administration over AI chips exports to China and the group’s rising stock price.
Huang has emerged as one of the faces of hype around the AI boom and is known for engaging with his fans. Fans were spotted upset him in the toilet at the company’s annual GTC conference in California in March.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang will make waves in crowds as he leaves at Beijing’s China International Supply Chain Expo last month © Jade Gao/AFP/Getty Images
Meanwhile, Tesla and the world’s wealthiest man chief executive Musk have expanded his personal safety in recent years due to death threats and stalkers.
His public profile grew even more after defending right-wing activists on social media platform X in Germany and the UK.
“We actually had two murder enthusiasts in the last seven months trying to kill me,” he told Tesla shareholders last year.
Musk is currently traveling with as many as 20 security professionals, according to people with knowledge of the issue. Last year he started his own security company, Foundation Security.
Tesla revealed that in 2023 he spent $2.4 million on mask security and worked for a security company. In 2024, it disclosed a security cost of just $500,000, representing just a small portion of the total cost of mask security.
Musk private companies, including SpaceX and Xai, have not disclosed what they are spending on protection.
Amazon has paid $1.6 million for Bezos security each year, at least since 2010. Last year, he paid CEO Andy Jassy $1.1 million from $986,000 the previous year.
Bezos is often the subject of public outrage at his personal wealth, tax arrangements, and the company’s approach to issues that include workers’ rights. The e-commerce giant installed a 1.5-inch thick bulletproof panel at its Seattle headquarters in early 2019, several years before Bezos stepped down from his post as CEO.
However, not all tech bosses increased their security last year. Palo Alto Networks doubled security spending against CEO Nikesh Arora in 2023 to $3.5 million, but in 2024 it returned to $1.6 million.
Amazon installed a 1.5-inch thick bulletproof panel at its Seattle headquarters in early 2019 years before Jeff Bezos stepped down from his post as CEO © Grant Hindsley/Bloomberg
High security concerns have impacted businesses in all sectors. In the wake of Thompson Killing, companies including CVS Pharmacy and Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield have removed photographs, biographies or their executives from their websites, according to a report by shareholder advisory firm Glass Lewis.
The company has also implemented stricter travel policies for bosses. For example, defense contractor Lockheed Martin has mandated only corporate civil aircraft exclusively by CEOs.
JPMorgan spent $882,000 on security for Jamie Dimon in 2024, up from $866,000 in 2023 and $761,000 in 2022.
Media Group Fox has reported an annual increase in housing security costs for CEO Lachlan Murdoch since 2020, citing a strong general sense of the broadcasting business, particularly during the election period.
“We previously saw executives targeted by individually dissatisfied employees and former business partners, but the direction of violence against the top of the company’s leadership has changed,” said Lianne Kennedy-Boudali, executive security consultant at Global Risk Consultancy.
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Like the threat of assassination, security companies are being asked to prevent attempts to lure, invade homes and stalkers. Executives are also facing cyber threats, such as the use of AI to create deep-voiced counterfeiting to approve transfers of funds to locations where money cannot be collected, such as cryptocurrency wallets.
“The company that combines deep public resilience with large retail shareholder bases and visible executives now faces a structurally high tail risk profile,” said Roderick Jones, founder of executive security group Concentric.
Crypto founders and investors are one of the earliest and most enthusiastic adopters of security measures. Coinbase spent $6.2 million on personal security last year for CEO Brian Armstrong.
A recent series of attempts to entice code chiefs and their families has heightened the sense of risk in Europe and the United States.
According to Konstantin Richter, founder of the $3.3 billion Crypto Company BlockDaemon, the threat is driven by “the continuous negative narrative about high-tech broth and the politicization of technology in general.” “Every time the market pumps things get weird,” he added. “It’s important to keep it inconspicuous.”
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Additional reports by Hannah Murphy, George Hammond, Stephen Morris, Rafe Woodin and Michael Acton. Data visualization by Maya de Souza in London.
