Sundar Pichai Joins Billionaire Club — But Missed Out On Another Billion By Selling Alphabet Stock Early

Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet Inc. GOOG GOOGL, has officially joined the ranks of billionaires, with his net worth reaching an estimated $1.1 billion. However, a closer examination reveals that the Google chief could have seen his fortune swell by an additional billion dollars had he chosen to hold onto shares sold over the past decade.

Check out the current price of GOOGL stock here.

What Happened: Pichai’s current wealth, as recorded by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, stems largely from long-term compensation and a 0.02% stake in the tech giant, now valued at over $2.3 trillion.

But according to Fortune, Pichai has systematically offloaded an estimated $650 million in Alphabet stock through pre-scheduled trading plans during his ten years as CEO.

Had these shares been retained, they would now be worth more than $1 billion in additional gains, potentially boosting his total net worth to approximately $2.5 billion, the Bloomberg Index indicates.

For instance, a June sale saw Pichai divest roughly 33,000 Class C Alphabet shares at about $169 apiece, totaling $5.5 million. By late July, those very shares were valued at over $193 per share, equating to more than $6.4 million.

His consistent stock sales, often executed under Rule 10b5-1 plans, are a standard practice for publicly listed executives to legally manage their compensation without accusations of insider trading.

James Reda of Gallagher's HR and compensation practice told Fortune that such moves are a sensible strategy for executives to avoid becoming “more leveraged” by taking out large loans against their stock.

Why It Matters: Unlike many prominent tech founders, Pichai’s substantial fortune was not amassed by founding the company.

Alphabet’s robust second-quarter results, announced earlier this week, featured revenue up 14% year-over-year to $96.4 billion, with Google Search, YouTube ads, Google subscriptions, and Google Cloud all achieving double-digit growth. It beat the analyst estimate of $93.72 billion.

The company reported second-quarter earnings of $2.31 per share, beating estimates of $2.16 per share.

The term “AI” was notably mentioned some 90 times on the earnings call. "We are leading at the frontier of AI and shipping at an incredible pace. AI is positively impacting every part of the business, driving strong momentum. Search delivered double-digit revenue growth, and our new features, like AI Overviews and AI Mode, are performing well," said Pichai.

Price Action: Alphabet was up 0.34% in premarket on Friday, and it ended 0.88% higher on Thursday. The stock was up 1.35% year-to-date and 14.21% over the past year.

Benzinga's Edge Stock Rankings indicate that GOOG maintains solid momentum across short, medium, and long-term periods. While the stock scores moderately on value, its growth rating remains robust. Additional performance details are available here.

The SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust SPY and Invesco QQQ Trust ETF QQQ, which track the S&P 500 index and Nasdaq 100 index, respectively, were higher in premarket on Friday. The SPY was up 0.11% at $635.11, while the QQQ advanced 0.025% to $565.15, according to Benzinga Pro data.

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Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.

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