Mark Zuckerberg: How much does he make and what does he stand to gain from IPO?

It’s no secret that Facebook’s 27-year old founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg is a wealthy man. With an estimated net worth of $17.5 billion, he was ranked 52nd on Forbes 2011 list of the world’s richest people. The IPO paperwork that the social-networking site filed on Wednesday provided more insight into just how much he’s pulling in and how much he might gain from the initial public offering. Hayley Tsukayama reports:

The base salaries for all of Facebook’s top executives were divulged in the company’s Wednesday S-1 filing. Here’s how it broke down:

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Mark Zuckerberg, CEO: Zuckerberg made a salary of $483,333 in 2011, in addition to a $220,500 bonus for the first half of 2011. He also received “other” compensation — which covers such things as chartered travel costs and security details — that totaled $783,529. Overall, Zuckerberg received $1,487,362 for 2011, excluding his substantial stake in the company.

Effective Jan. 1, 2013, Zuckerberg will reduce his base annual salary to $1.

Bloomberg News examines how Zuckerberg’s wealth could compare to other Silicon Valley titans:

Facebook Inc.’s initial public offering may value Mark Zuckerberg’s stake at $28.4 billion, making him richer than Google Inc.’s co-founders and almost on par with Larry Ellison, who started Oracle Corp. 35 years ago.

The 27-year-old founder and chief executive officer of Facebook is the company’s top stakeholder as it prepares to go public, with 533.8 million shares, or 28.4 percent, according to a regulatory filing yesterday. Investment firms Accel Partners and Digital Sky Technologies own a combined 16.8 percent.

Facebook said in its prospectus that it plans to raise as much as $5 billion in an IPO. The Menlo Park, California-based company is discussing a valuation of $75 billion to $100 billion, two people familiar with the matter said last week. At the top end of that range, Zuckerberg will own stock worth $28.4 billion. His command of the company goes beyond stock -- he controls 56.9 percent of the voting power.

“It looks from this as if Zuckerberg is maintaining a lot of control,” said Rebecca Lieb, an analyst at Altimeter Group in New York. “He’s shown a great deal of wisdom and maturity in bringing the company to this level of stability and profitability before going public.”

By comparison, Google’s Sergey Brin and Larry Page are each worth more than $15 billion based on their ownership of that company’s shares. Ellison, 67, owns stock worth about $31 billion in Oracle, the software company he founded in 1977.

Some analysts are questioning whether Zuckerberg’s grip on the company is too tight. Bloomberg News reports:

Mark Zuckerberg’s majority control over Facebook Inc. puts too much power in the hands of one person and may deter potential investors in the company’s initial public offering, corporate-governance experts said.

The chief executive officer has 56.9 percent of voting power, the Menlo Park, California-based company said yesterday in its prospectus to investors. He also has the ability to designate a successor in the event he still controls the company at the time of his death, Facebook said in the filing.

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