Evan Spiegel just got an $800 million bonus for taking Snap public

Reuters

Evan Spiegel (center) and Bobby Murphy (right) at during Snap's initial public offering on March 2.

Snap cofounder Evan Spiegel just became $800 million richer.

The 26-year-old CEO has been officially awarded roughly 37 million additional company shares, according to a regulatory filing with the SEC. At Snap's closing share price of $21.44 on Tuesday, Spiegel's bonus is worth roughly $800 million.

Before Snap's IPO, the company explained that Spiegel's so-called CEO award was intended to "motivate him to continue growing our business and improving our financial results so that we could undertake an initial public offering, which we regard as an important milestone that will provide liquidity to our stockholders and employees."

Spiegel has fulfilled his end of the bargain now that Snap has gone public. The fully-vested shares, which total about 3% of Snap's outstanding stock, will be given to him in increments over a period of three years. The bonus places his net worth, which is almost entirely based on Snap's share price, at close to $5.5 billion.

Provided that Spiegel and cofounder Bobby Murphy don't sell additional shares, Spiegel's 3% stock award will also mean that he has complete voting power over Snap after three years. Currently, he and Murphy each wield 50% of Snap's Class-C shares, which come with 10-1 voting rights. The company's publicly traded Class-A shares come with no voting rights.

Get the latest Snap stock price here.