CEO Pay Hits a New Record High
Image: TIME/Tyler Cowen/St. Martin’s Press
The median overall pay for S&P 500 CEOs in 2021 was $14.7 million, per a new Wall Street Journal analysis, setting an annual record for the sixth-straight year.
🚗📈 Driving the trend… Strong profits and robust markets that boosted pay package performance measures, according to the WSJ (which means that pay could actually end up being higher or lower than reported).
- Total comp rose by at least 12% for most of the executives, while most companies recorded annual shareholder returns of nearly 30%.
- Excluding equity (stock) awards, median compensation was $4.1 million. In 2020, the median overall pay package was $13.4 million for the same cohort, with median cash compensation of $3.1 million.
- Nine CEOs got pay packages worth at least $50 million last year, up from seven in 2020 and one in 2016.
☝️ One interesting thing: Apple CEO Tim Cook and the aforementioned Elon Musk came in at opposite ends of the spectrum: ~$99 million vs. $0, respectively.
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