We know CEO’s can make some serious money.
But seeing the numbers put in context will actually make you throw up, especially with the news that came out yesterday about the world’s richest man.
Here are the top 5 CEO pay packages.
5. Brian Armstrong - $680 million
Company: Coinbase - the cryptocurrency exchange
Why the payday? Armstrong received $680 million worth of stock options in 2024 after hitting key growth targets for the company.
Context: Armstrong’s $680 million is roughly 36 times the average S&P 500 CEO pay and nearly 14,000 times the median U.S. worker’s annual pay.
“Bring me the money”
4. Hock E. Tan - $767 million
Company: Broadcom - the computer chip and software maker.
Why the payday? Hasn’t come yet - Broadcom needs to hit some ambitious revenue milestones first ($90 billion in a 12-month period between 2028 and 2030).
Context: That $767 million could buy three brand new Boeing 767 commercial airplanes…with $167 million left over.
“How much? That’ll do.”
3. Alexander Karp - $1.1 billion
Company: Palantir - the AI and big data company that makes software for massive clients…like the US government.
Why the payday? Karp received the Palantir stock after a 340% surge in their share price.
Context: One billion one hundred million $1 bills laid end to end would stretch around 106,590 miles, more than four times the circumference of the Earth (~24,900 miles).
Great fit.
2. Elon Musk - $56 billion
Company: Tesla - the electric car and clean energy company.
Why the payday? Musk received the payday thanks to a compensation plan that paid him no salary or cash bonuses and only paid out if Tesla stock went from $50 billion to $650 billion.
Context: If you spent $1 million every single day, it would take you over 153 years to spend $56 billion.
1. Elon Musk - $1 trillion
You knew this one was coming…
Company: Tesla - the company that lets you program the car horn to sound like a fart.
Why the payday? Musk will receive the $1 trillion stock option plan if he grow's the company to be worth $8.5 trillion in value or more. This is more than double the size of the world’s current largest company (Nvidia) and about 6x what Tesla is worth now.
There are other targets involved, like delivering 20 million vehicles over the next decade and getting 1 million self-driving robo-taxis on the road.
Context: If you stacked $1 trillion in $100 bills, it would reach about 67,866 miles high, nearly three times the distance from the Earth to the Moon.
“Not too shabby.”
