Facebook paid $7.3 million to protect Mark Zuckerberg last year

That’s twice as much as it cost the company for his security in the previous year, reports the Guardian. The increased costs were revealed in an SEC filing and were, in part at least, due to “specific threats to his safety”:

Because of the high visibility of our company, our compensation & governance committee has authorized an “overall security program” for Mr. Zuckerberg to address safety concerns due to specific threats to his safety arising directly as a result of his position as our founder, Chairman, and CEO. We require these security measures for the company’s benefit because of the importance of Mr. Zuckerberg to Facebook, and we believe that the costs of this overall security program are appropriate and necessary. We paid for the initial procurement, installation, and maintenance of security measures for Mr. Zuckerberg’s personal residences, and we pay for the annual costs of security personnel. In addition, Mr. Zuckerberg uses private aircraft for personal travel in connection with his overall security program.

The filing also reveals Facebook spent $2.7 million protecting Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg in 2017. That sum was just slightly higher than the cost of her security in 2016.