The highest-paid CEOs aren’t all at major tech companies.
Chief executives at Pinterest, Peloton and Hertz are out-earning Apple’s Tim Cook, according to a new analysis published by the Wall Street Journal.
The Wall Street Journal published its list of the highest-paid CEOs of 2022, which was based on data from C-Suite Comp, a data analytics firm that tracks the compensation of executives at nearly 4,000 publicly traded US companies. Their ranking includes executives’ salaries, bonuses, perks and stock options, among other factors.
CEOs often receive restricted stock or options as a significant part of their compensation, the value of which can fluctuate.
The median pay for S&P 500 leaders dropped to $14.5 million last year, down from $14.7 million in 2021. Comparably, in 2022, the average U.S. worker earned about $56,000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman topped the list of highest-paid leaders with a total compensation package of $253 million. The next CEO on the list, Sundar Pichai of Alphabet, Google’s parent company, took home $226 million in 2022.
Here’s how much the U.S.’s 10 best-paid CEOs are pulling in, as of 2022:
1. Stephen Schwarzman, Blackstone
Total compensation: $253 million
2. Sundar Pichai, Alphabet
Total compensation: $226 million
3. Stephen Scherr, Hertz
Total compensation: $182 million
4. Barry McCarthy, Peloton
Total compensation: $168 million
5. Michael Rapino, Live Nation
Total compensation: $139 million
6. Safra Catz, Oracle
Total compensation: $138 million
7. Douglas Ingram, Sarepta Therapeutics
Total compensation: $125 million
8. Bill Ready, Pinterest
Total compensation: $123 million
9. Kiwi Camara, CS Disco
Total compensation: $110 million
10. Tim Cook, Apple
Total compensation: $99 million
For Bill Ready, who took at the helm at Pinterest in June 2022, about $101 million of his pay came in stock options, which was awarded in connection with his hiring last year, the Wall Street Journal reports. A Pinterest spokeswoman told the newspaper that Ready shouldn’t receive any additional equity in the first four years on the job.
Oracle’s Safra Catz is the only woman among the top 10 highest-paid leaders, even though the share of female Fortune 500 CEOs hit an all-time high in 2022. Catz, who has led Oracle since 2014, has ranked at the top of several lists of the highest-paid tech CEOs and female executives since taking on the role, CNBC reports.
