A new report shows that CEO compensation packages at America’s largest companies broke records in 2023, and stock awards are largely responsible for the increase.
Analysis by Wall Street Journal showed that the average salary of CEOs of the largest companies in the United States was $15.7 million. That’s up from $14.5 million in 2022.
The top eight CEOs earned $50 million or more over the past year, reflecting a global trend of rising executive pay. Those salaries generally depend on performance.
The list of top earners does not include high-profile CEOs like Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk or Tim Cook; There are no women in the top 25 either.
The top earner on the Journal’s list was Broadcom’s Hock Tan, who raised about $162 million. As part of his deal, Tan must remain in his role for five years while ensuring the company hits share price targets.
The top earner on the Journal’s list was Broadcom’s Hock Tan, shown here, who grossed about $162 million.
Nikesh Arora, a former top executive at Google, came in second on the list thanks to his position at Palo Talo Networks.
Tan’s 2023 salary, boosted by stock awards worth $160.5 million, was 510 times the average salary of the chip company’s employees.
Broadcom previously said Tan’s pay deal is partly to ensure loyalty and ensure shareholder goals can be met. For the remainder of his tenure as CEO, Tan will not receive cash bonuses or any other equity.
In November 2023, Broadcom announced that it had cleared all regulatory hurdles and plans to complete its $69 billion acquisition of cloud technology company VMware.
Broadcom posted 2023 revenue of $35.82 billion and its shares have risen about 17 percent so far in 2024 after nearly doubling last year.
Tan has been pursuing such deals for years, building the company with big acquisitions like Symantec for about $11 billion in 2019, and CA Technologies for about $19 billion the year before.
Following Tan is Nikesh Arora of Palo Alto Networks, who earned $151 million, of which $149.5 million came from equity awards. Arora, a former top executive at Google, has held the position in Palo Alto since June 2018.
The company provides software security to 85 of the Fortune 100 companies.
In third place, Stephen Schwarzman, who contributed $119.7 million, of which almost $350,000 came from shares of Blackstone, the world’s largest private equity firm.
Schwarzman, who previously strongly supported Donald Trump’s presidency but revealed that he will not support him in 2024, took home a total of $896.7 million, including dividends, down 30 percent from his $1.2 billion he took home in 2022.
Schwarzman owns about 231.9 million Blackstone shares and the company paid an annual dividend of $3.35 per share.
Stephen Schwarzman, co-founder, chairman and CEO of Blackstone, is third on the list. He recently made headlines after declaring that he would not support Donald Trump in 2024.
Charter CEO Chris Winfrey was fourth on the CEO list and has been with the company since 2010.
In fourth place, Christopher Winfrey of Charter Communications earned $89 million, of which $84 million was equity. Winfrey has been with Charter since 2010, first joining as CFO before becoming COO in 2021. During that time, Charter has grown considerably.
She promoted to her current position as CEO and President in December 2022. She was the first revealed in March of this year that his salary had increased to just under $90 million.
The highest-paid woman on the list is Accenture’s Julie Sweet, who ranks 28th on the list with earnings of just over $30 million, $120 million less than the top end.
The second-highest woman on the list, Lisa Su of Advanced Micro Devices, with earnings of $30 million, earned $28 million in stock.
There were 31 women running S&P 500 companies for the year ending 2023, up from 24 in 2020.
Apple CEO Tim Cook made it into the top ten on the list of winners, along with Netflix’s Ted Sarandos and Discovery’s David Zaslav.
One-third of the worst-performing companies in the WSJ analysis were health care companies, and Pfizer admitted that bonuses were not paid to executives after financial targets were not met.
The pharmaceutical giant’s CEO, Albert Bourla, received $17.5 million in equity as thanks for his loyalty and to help him focus on long-term goals, the company said.
