It’s not quite the salary of a CEO of the country’s top PC manufacturer, but it sounds like Mark Hurd will still be doing alright for himself.
The Wall Street Journal reports that former HP CEO Mark Hurd will be making $950,000 per year as the co-president of Oracle. That is, if he survives a lawsuit from HP that would prevent him from joining the rival company.
Hurd was ousted from HP after allegations were made that he sexually harassed a female colleague. Those claims ended up being completely without merit, but the resulting investigation did reveal that Hurd had falsified some expense reports. HP clung onto that as the reason for forcing Hurd to step down, but many saw it as a knee jerk reaction to the salacious-headline-inducing sexual assault claim.
Oracle CEO Larry Ellison was one of the most high-profile tech executives to come to Hurd’s side after all of this broke loose. Ellison called Hurd one of the best company leaders ever and blasted HP for making what he called a very careless move. The falsified expense reports had only very small and narrow consequences.
Ellison personally offered Hurd the job of co-president at Oracle, a software company that has been a very strong partner of HP for years but recently started competing directly with some of HP’s business.
As a result, HP has filed a lawsuit claiming that by taking the Oracle position Hurd is in direct violation of his severance deal. Hurd received a reported $30 million in cash and stock options when leaving HP.
Ellison said the lawsuit is completely “vindictive.” It’s unlikely Hurd would step away from the Oracle offer. It seems this saga is just going to drag on and on.
