Bill Gates Gets Salary Cut

Well, Bill Gates is in no way in danger of going hungry. But he did take a consistent $33,333 salary cut. And he is not alone. Steve Ballmer, Microsoft Chief Executive Officer is in the same financial predicament, having to count a salary $33,333 smaller compared with the previous year.

While $33,333 is but pocket change to both men, valued at $53 billion and $13.6 billion by this year's Forbes billionaires tally, the missing amounts have a detrimental impact on their image. And this if further illustrated by the fact that neither Bill Gates nor Steve Ballmer have the highest salaries with the Redmond Company.

They each earned a mere $616,667 in fiscal 2006. This is actually an increase over the $600,000 they both pulled in FY 2005. The loss they took was in the bonuses afferent to the paychecks. As in the past year the duo received bonuses of $400,000 each, hitting the $1million milestone, in 2006, with only $350,000 they fell short of the $1 million mark.

And while Bill and Steve pocket less salary money, Kevin Johnson, co-president of the company's platforms and services division, which includes Windows, and Jeff Raikes, president of its business division, which includes Microsoft Office have topped the million mark pulling in $1,095,000 in salary and bonuses.