The CEO's total compensation of $879,048 — consisting of $479,167 in base salary, $168,081 in stock awards (bonus restricted stock units), and $231,800 in cash bonus — is exceptionally modest for a CEO of an $8.1 billion market-cap technology company, well within benchmark expectations. The pay structure is sound: the CEO received no refresh equity award in 2025 because the board determined his large ownership stake already aligns his interests with shareholders, the company has a meaningful clawback policy, no guaranteed bonuses, and performance-based incentives tied to specific operational milestones such as the commercial launch of the Aurora Driver. Prior Say on Pay support was 99.55%, reflecting broad shareholder satisfaction, and the compensation program passes all policy screens with no flags.

PwC has served as Aurora's auditor since March 2023 — only about 3 years — which is well below the 25-year tenure threshold that would trigger a concern. The non-audit fees (audit-related fees of $375,000 plus tax fees of $94,000 plus other fees of $2,000 = $471,000) represent approximately 72% of core audit fees ($650,000), which exceeds the 50% threshold; however, the audit-related fees are described as assurance and related services traditionally performed by the independent auditor, which are closely tied to the audit scope. Even treating all non-audit fees at face value, the tenure is short, PwC is a Big 4 firm appropriate for an $8.1B market-cap company, all fees were pre-approved by the audit committee, and there are no disclosed restatements — on balance, the non-audit ratio is a yellow flag but not sufficient to override the otherwise clean profile.