Elon Musk is highest-paid chief executive: Meet the other top-grossing CEOs

HIGHEST-PAID EXECUTIVE: Elon Musk of Telsa is currently on top of the CEO pay list, having received $6.66 billion executive pay in 2020, according to Bloomberg. On November 15, 2021, Reuters reported that Musk sold $930 million in shares to meet tax withholding obligations to the US related to the exercise of stock options, based on US securities filings. That day, Musk sold 934,091 shares after exercising options to buy 2.1 million stocks at $6.24 each.

TWITTER POLL: On October 29, 2021, Musk became the first person to be worth more than $300 billion, making him the first person on the planet to reach that milestone. In the last two weeks, Musk has sold nearly $9 billion worth of Tesla but he’s just halfway toward selling 10% of his stake. On November 6, he ran a poll on Twitter whether he must sell 10% of his Tesla stock or not: 3.5 million tweeps voted, with 57.9% clicking “Yes”.

PHENOMENAL PAY: The top earners on the Equilar 200 list are often recipients of multi-year equity grants intended to pay out over an extended time period, and 2020 was no different. These awards are reported to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as a total value based on the stock price on the date they are granted, regardless of the time horizon on which they may be earned. Following are the top-grossing CEOs in 2020, based on Equilar list:

COMPENSATION: In most corporations, CEO pay is chiefly awarded through stocks — or the rights to earn shares of company stock — through continued service (time-based) or by meeting targets/benchmarks (performance-based). 

Alexander Karp: $1.098 billion | Company: Palantir Technologies (PLTR) | Industry: Software

Tony Xu: $413.6 million | Company: Doordash (DASH) | Industry: Food delivery

Eric Wu: $370,240,992 Company: Opendoor Technologies (OPEN) | Industry: Real Estate

Chad Richison: $211.13 million | Company: Paycom | Industry: Software

Joseph Levin: $189,503,132 | Company: IAC/InterActiveCorp (IAC) | Industry: Internet/Media (holding company)

Robert Kotick: $154,613,318 | Company: Activision Blizzard (ATVI) | Industry: Interactive entertainment content and services

Leonard S. Schleifer: $135,350,121 | Company: Regeneron Pharma (REGN) | Industry: Pharmaceuticals

Brian Chesky: $120,099,075 | Company: Airbnb (ABNB) | Industry: Internet / Lodging

Piotr Szulczewski: $78,191,786 | Company: ContextLogic (WISH) | Industry: e-Commerce

Javier J. Rodriguez: $73,432,365 | Company: DaVita (DVA) | Industry: Healthcare

Larry Culp: $72,728,233 | Company: General Electric (GE) | Industry: Conglomerate

G. Michael Sievert: $54,914,015 | Company: T-Mobile US (TMUS) | Industry: Telecommunications

John J. Donahoe II: $53,499,980 | Company: Nike (NKE) | Industry: Apparel/footwear

Jay Farner: $51,727,166 | Company: Rocket (RKT) | Industry: Consumer Finance

Dexter Goei: $48,021,088 | Company: Altice USA (ATUS) | Industry: Telecommunications / Mass Media

Gregory B. Maffei: $46,585,594 | Company: Liberty Media (FWON.K) | Industry: Internet/Media

Shantanu Narayen: $45,889,954 | Company: Adobe (ADBE) | Industry: Software

Satya Nadella: $44,321,788 | Company: Microsoft (MSFT) | Industry: Software

James Heppelmann: $43,741,746 | Company: PTC (PTC) | Industry: Engineering, digital manufacturing

Reed Hastings: $43,226,024 | Company: Netflix (NFLX) | Industry: Tech / Entertainment / Mass Media