Bankrupt left-wing media company Vice Media continued to pay its diversity chief six figures as the company spiraled toward bankruptcy, according to a Monday court filing.
Vice Chief People Officer Daisy Auger-Dominguez was paid $748,583 during the year preceding the media outlet’s bankruptcy declaration in May 2022. Vice disclosed her salary in a statement of financial affairs to a New York bankruptcy court.
Today at VICE I was unable to pull a court record, which costs 10 cents, because the company isn’t paying bills
Meanwhile so many execs, some which led VICE to bankruptcy, make $700-900k, including bonuses at the time VICE laid off much cheaper workers. It’s worse than I thought pic.twitter.com/7vr7iRiPIb
— Joseph Cox (@josephfcox) July 11, 2023
Auger-Dominguez describes herself as an executive who oversaw diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) in her role at Vice. She has written a book about racial equity in the workplace and given a TED talk on the topic of inclusion. (RELATED: ‘The Young Turks’ Star Admits She Would’ve Done The Same Thing As Kyle Rittenhouse)
Vice paid multiple executives six-figure salaries while allegedly stiffing freelancers and failing to pay its bills as the outlet went bankrupt.
Vice paid Chief Digital Officer Cory Haik $726,068 and Chief Content Officer Danny Gabai $551,909 in the year leading up to the outlet’s bankruptcy, the court filing shows. Chief Operating Officer Hosi Simon received a $328,125 salary and CEO Hozefa Lokhandwala was paid $836,988.
Performance bonuses for executives totaled over one million dollars, the court filings show. At the same time, Vice will not be able to pay severance packages this month, according to Semafor.
Vice Media declared bankruptcy on May 15 after years of financial troubles and leadership turmoil. The outlet was then bought out by a group of investors led by liberal billionaire George Soros.