He’s one of the most famous and widely admired corporate leaders in the world. But it’s the haters that companies like
Meta, whose businesses include Facebook and Instagram, reported the highest spending on personal security for top executives last year, filings culled by research firm Equilar show. Just over a quarter of the companies in the Fortune 500 reported spending money to protect their CEOs and other top executives. Of those that did, the median payment for personal security doubled over the last three years to about $98,000.
Some firms respond by beefing up security. For example, tech companies routinely require everyone attending a major event, such as Apple’s annual unveiling of the next iPhone or a shareholder meeting, to go through airport-style security checkpoints before entering. Depending on the company, such an approach may make sense. Many top executives are little known to the public, operating in industries and locations that make them far less prone to public exposure and to threats.
Some organizations have a protective intelligence group that uses digital tools such as machine learning or artificial intelligence to comb through online comments to detect threats not only on social media platforms such as X but also on the dark web, says Komendat. They look for what’s being said about the company, its employees and its leadership to uncover risks.