Stephen Elop’s life is a about to get much better not only does he already have a new job lined up as executive vice president of devices for Microsoft but according to the terms of his contract with Nokia he is entitled to “termination payments” when the Microsoft buyout of Nokia is completed. What does this mean? It means that Nokia will have to pay him 18 months of his base salary, plus a short-term management cash incentive, equivalent to a total of around 5.7 million euros. Tack onto that the money he will receive from accelerated vesting of his outstanding equity awards and Mr Elop will receive around 25 million dollars for selling Nokia to Microsoft.

Am I the only one here that this doesn’t sit well with? I do realize that all of these terms were in his contract when Nokia hired him however if you are the key person in orchestrating the sell out of your company to another company you shouldn’t get your pay. I mean he is DIRECTLY responsible for his own termination in this case. This clause was put into the contract in case the board decided to terminate Mr. Elop’s employment with Nokia. This clause is not in contract if he willfully acts to end his relationship with Nokia. I know in the end this all Microsoft’s money that Nokia will be giving him however this whole transaction smells funny to me.

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