By Jonathan Easton

Netflix co-CEO and founder Reed Hastings exercised US$612 million from stock options in 2020, a new filing has revealed.

The streaming leader enjoyed a stellar 2020 in which it surpassed 200 million subscribers globally, and the founder has benefited from this success with Netflix’s shares rising more than 67 per cent during the year.

According to Netflix’s published compensation of executive officers document, Hastings purchased over 1.33 million shares in the company in 2020 in exercising his stock options.

The document reveals that Netflix co-CEOs Reed Hastings and Ted Sarandos earned, respectively, US$43.2 million and US$39.3 million during the year.

Hastings’ base salary was at US$650,000 with the vast majority of his income coming from a grant of options worth US$42.4 million. Sarandos meanwhile had a base salary of US$20 million and an option grant of US$18.3 million.

The co-CEOs may struggle to match that total in 2021 however. The first quarter of the year has already demonstrated a stall in subscriber growth, with its share price slumping by 10 per cent as a result.

Netflix enjoyed a record year in 2020, but only added 3.98 million net new paid subscribers in Q1, down from 8.5 million reported in the previous quarter and two million less than the company had forecast.