Samsung's AI boom delivers 100% bonuses: Strike, shareholder fight and AI windfall explained

Samsung Electronics' semiconductor employees are collecting the maximum 100 percent performance bonus this week, according to a company notice reported by The Korea Times, a payout most coverage is framing as a straightforward AI-boom success story. What's missing from that narrative is how close this money came to never being paid at all, how dramatically it reverses just two years of near-zero payouts, and who inside and outside the company is still actively fighting to stop it.