With a US$6.6 billion annual salary. Musk tops Bloomberg’s list of the highest-paid CEOs in the United States,,and his salary was nearly 12 times that of second place: Oak Street Health CEO Mike Pecos, who received $3 billion ($568 million).
According to the Bloomberg Pay Index, Musk has yielded about $33 billion USD in gains, earning him the title of highest-paid U.S. CEO for the last three years.
The Bloomberg Pay Index is a yearly tally of the highest paid executives leading publicly traded US companies. It is compiled using regulatory filings submitted to the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
It includes salary, performance, and discretionary bonuses, pension as well as the value of any stock options or grants received within the year. Deferred compensation is also included.
“For Musk, none of it is salary,” explained Bloomberg’s Anders Melin. “He gets only paid in stock options that grow in value if Tesla (NASDAQGS:TSLA -2.17%) ‘s share price goes up. And Tesla share prices have been on a tear for the past few years, so this package has become worth quite a bit of money.”
Musk has consistently ranked among the wealthiest people in the world, currently trailing just behind LVMH head Bernard Arnault and Jeff Bezos.
The top 10 features executives from 7 different companies, and is entirely comprised of men. GoodRX Holdings’ co-ceos Trevor Bezdek and Douglas Hirsch sit third and fourth, each receiving more than $497 million, primarily through stock awards.
Pykosz is one of three Oak Street Health executives on the list, alongside COO Geoffrey Price in 7th ($356 million) and CMO Griffin Myers in 9th ($221 million).
Apple’s Tim Cook fell to 8th – down from second on last year’s list — with compensation of $265 million. Opendoor CEO Eric Wu, Palantir’s Alex Karp and Paycom Software’s Chad Richison are in 5th, 6th, and 10th respectively.
All, other than Musk and Karp, received the majority of their remuneration through stock awards.
A separate study, conducted by the New York Times and Equilar, listed Palantir boss Karp as the highest paid executive on the basis of how his pay compared to the average pay of his employees.
According to Bloomberg, the typical CEO among America’s 1,000 biggest listed companies receives 144 times the pay of their median employees.
