BOISE — Micron Technology's top executive has been up and down the pay scale. Now Steve Appleton has been singled out as one of the lowest paid CEOs in the country.
Forbes magazine's annual executive pay survey was released Friday. Appleton was ranked 489th. The low ranking compares to just two years ago, when Appleton ranked near the top of the list after a year in which he cashed in more than $41 million in stock options.
Appleton, who stopped drawing his $800,000 annual salary in October 2001, was paired up with the likes of Warren Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway, Lawrence Ellison of Oracle and Jeffrey Bezos of Amazon.com for slashing his own pay during 2002.
The Forbes survey found that while a number of executives had cut their own pay in 2002, some had received increased stock options in compensation. Appleton was listed as one of the executives who received one of the largest percentage increases in options in 2002, adding 400,000 stock options to his portfolio.
The firm's proxy statement said the value of those options over the next 10 years could be as high as $13.5 million. Micron shares have trended steadily downward over the past two years and have sunk by about 40 percent since that proxy statement was issued. The options have value only if share prices increase in value.