Major media and technology companies are dramatically increasing spending on private security for their top executives as threats against corporate leadership have risen sharply, according to a report from the Hollywood Reporter.
Netflix increased its security budget by 30 percent year-over-year, spending $1.8 million last year. Amazon’s security spending rose 50 percent over the same period, while Warner Bros. Discovery reported a 200 percent increase. Similar jumps were reported across other major corporations, including OpenAI, Meta, Fox, Apple and Comcast.
James Hamilton, founder of Hamilton Security Group, told the Reporter the threats facing executives now come from a wider range of sources than in past years. “There’s a lot of anger directed at people leading these companies, and the threat vectors are coming from different places that we didn’t have, say, a decade ago,” Hamilton said.
A Turning Point
Jeff Zisner, president and CEO of AEGIS Security & Investigations, said threats from former employees and people claiming to have been wronged by corporations have been increasing. But he identified the murder of UnitedHealthcare executive Brian Thompson by Luigi Mangione in 2024 as the moment that produced the sharpest rise in threats against executives.
A report from the Security Executive Council described Mangione’s crime as “an event that significantly influenced public and corporate perceptions of executive-directed violence.” The report added that “for many executives, the event prompted reflection on their overall risk landscape and the potential vulnerabilities of their families and assets.”
High-Profile Targets
Security experts also point to the growing public visibility of certain executives as a factor driving costs higher. Leaders who become closely identified with their companies’ public image, such as Mark Zuckerberg, Bob Iger and Elon Musk, face elevated risk because of their frequent presence in the news as individual public figures.
“Fame is often a risk multiplier, requiring a different approach compared to protecting an executive with a limited public profile but operating in an industry with its own security risk factors,” said Sid Kosaraju, president of Crisis24.
Hamilton said he expects the elevated spending to continue for the foreseeable future, tying the trend to widening economic inequality. “This is going to be the reality for a long time, because the disparity in wealth is not getting more finite, it’s actually getting larger,” Hamilton said. “Meaning the rich are getting a hell of a lot richer, and the poor are getting a hell of a lot poorer.”
