Google chief gets $199m share bonus – more than firm owes UK in back taxes

Google boss Sundar Pichai is now the highest-paid chief executive in America after being awarded $199m (£138m) of shares. He became chief executive in October after its reorganisation into holding company Alphabet, and was given 273,328 shares, according to a company filing. It is more than the £130m ($187m) Google has agreed to pay the UK government in back taxes since 2005. The award takes his total Alphabet holding to around $650m (£450m) - yet even this figure falls way short of the net worth of Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

Every day there are thousands of Indian Internet users coming online for the first time, taking their journey in computing, we are barely getting started.

Chennai-born Pichai on plans to expand into India

Last week, Alphabet - Google’s parent company - surpassed Apple as the world’s most valuable firm after it reported a profit of $4.9bn (£3.4bn) in the three months to the end of December, an increase from $4.7bn a year ago. On an annual basis, Alphabet made $16.3bn, but the figures showed that the “Other Bets” business lost $3.6bn during the period, while Google’s operating income rose to $23.4bn, as online advertising increased. Page and Brin are worth around $34bn each, according to Forbes.

Google boss