He owned a company that was bought by Twitter and instead of getting the payout in the form of shares or other benefits, he chose it as a salary so that he'd have to pay more taxes on it in Iceland -- at least, that's the reason he gave.
This means they had to hire him as an employee and essentially pay him what they bought his company for over X years. If they fire him before that time, they owe him (I imagine) the lump sum that remains.
And yes the fact that his wage was taxed 46% whereas accepting shares or a lump sum would have been taxed at 22% is not lost on me.
He owned a company that was bought by Twitter and instead of getting the payout in the form of shares or other benefits, he chose it as a salary so that he'd have to pay more taxes on it in Iceland -- at least, that's the reason he gave.
This means they had to hire him as an employee and essentially pay him what they bought his company for over X years. If they fire him before that time, they owe him (I imagine) the lump sum that remains.
And yes the fact that his wage was taxed 46% whereas accepting shares or a lump sum would have been taxed at 22% is not lost on me.