Elon Musk at the groundbreaking event for Tesla's Gigafactory 3 in China. (Photo: Tesla)

The United States, according to World Bank estimates, has some of the worst income inequality in the developed world. And in recent years, the problem only appears to be getting worse.

In addition to a range of macroeconomic causes, including globalization, deregulation, and the decline of workers’ unions, exorbitant executive compensation packages are also partially to blame for the growing inequality. 

A recent report released by the Economic Policy Institute, a non-partisan think tank, found that the average CEO pay at the 350 largest U.S. companies climbed by over 1,000% in the last 40 years. Meanwhile, wages for the average worker climbed by less than 12%. 

24/7 Wall St. reviewed CEO compensation for the 2018 fiscal year from Equilar, a corporate data firm, to identify the 25 highest-paid CEOs of the year. CEO compensation includes salary and any bonuses, stock and options grants, and benefits. Only CEOs who still hold their position were included in our analysis. We also considered company revenue for the most recent available fiscal year from financial disclosure statements filed with the SEC.

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The annual compensation of the chief executives on this list ranges from $28.4 million to a staggering $2.3 billion. More often than not, the amount the CEO took home last year is hundreds and even thousands of times the salaries of their typical employee. 

To contrast CEO pay with the average worker’s salary is not to suggest that many chief executives are not worthy of higher pay. Being the highest ranking executive in a company means making major corporate decisions, managing resources and operations while also being a public figurehead – all of which can have profound implications, particularly at some of the world’s most valuable companies, like those on this list. 

The multimillion and billion-dollar compensation packages on this list beg the question: How much is too much?

Marc Benioff, salesforce.com CEO. (Photo: jdlasica / Flickr)

25. Marc Benioff

• Company: salesforce.com (CRM)

• Annual compensation: $28.4 million

• Company revenue: $13.3 billion

• CEO pay vs. median employee salary: 187x

24. Shantanu Narayen

• Company: Adobe (ADBE)

• Annual compensation: $28.4 million

• Company revenue: $9 billion

• CEO pay vs. median employee salary: 200x

23. Brian L. Roberts

• Company: Comcast (CMCS.A)

• Annual compensation: $29.3 million

• Company revenue: $94.5 billion

• CEO pay vs. median employee salary: 426x

22. Howard W. Lutnick

• Company: BGC Partners (BGCP)

• Annual compensation: $29.7 million

• Company revenue: $1.9 billion

• CEO pay vs. median employee salary: 284x

21. James Dimon

• Company: JPMorgan Chase (JPM)

• Annual compensation: $30 million

• Company revenue: $109 billion

• CEO pay vs. median employee salary: 381x

Robert A. Kotick, Activision Blizzard CEO. (Photo: Mike Windle / Getty Images)

20. Robert A. Kotick

• Company: Activision Blizzard (ATVI)

• Annual compensation: $30.8 million

• Company revenue: $7.5 billion

• CEO pay vs. median employee salary: 319x

19. Brian R. Niccol

• Company: Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG)

• Annual compensation: $33.5 million

• Company revenue: $4.9 billion

• CEO pay vs. median employee salary: 2,450x

18. Jeff K. Storey

• Company: CenturyLink (CTL)

• Annual compensation: $35.7 million

• Company revenue: $23.4 billion

• CEO pay vs. median employee salary: 527x

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17. Reed Hastings

• Company: Netflix (NFLX)

• Annual compensation: $36.1 million

• Company revenue: $15.8 billion

• CEO pay vs. median employee salary: 178x

16. Daniel H. Schulman

• Company: PayPal (PYPL)

• Annual compensation: $37.8 million

• Company revenue: $15.5 billion

• CEO pay vs. median employee salary: 543x

Daniel H. Schulman, PayPal CEO. (Photo: PopTech, Kris Klug / Wikimedia Commons)

15. Paul C. Saville

• Company: NVR (NVR)

• Annual compensation: $39.1 million

• Company revenue: $7.2 billion

• CEO pay vs. median employee salary: 617x

14. Joseph M. Hogan

• Company: Align Technology (ALGN)

• Annual compensation: $41.8 million

• Company revenue: $2 billion

• CEO pay vs. median employee salary: 3,168x

13. Stephen P. MacMillan

• Company: Hologic (HOLX)

• Annual compensation: $42 million

• Company revenue: $3.2 billion

• CEO pay vs. median employee salary: 478x

12. Lewis L. Bird, III

• Company: At Home Group (HOME)

• Annual compensation: $43.1 million

• Company revenue: $1.2 billion

• CEO pay vs. median employee salary: N/A

11. James R. Murdoch

• Company: Twenty-First Century Fox (FOXA)

• Annual compensation: $44.4 million

• Company revenue: $30.4 billion

• CEO pay vs. median employee salary: 741x

Richard B. Handle, Jefferies Financial Group CEO. (Photo: Michael Kovac / Getty Images)

10. Richard B. Handler

• Company: Jefferies Financial Group (JEF)

• Annual compensation: $44.7 million

• Company revenue: $5 billion (11 months)

• CEO pay vs. median employee salary: 298x

9. Vivek Shah

• Company: j2 Global (JCOM)

• Annual compensation: $45.1 million

• Company revenue: $1.2 billion

• CEO pay vs. median employee salary: 565x

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8. Fabrizio Freda

• Company: Estée Lauder (EL)

• Annual compensation: $48.2 million

• Company revenue: $14.9 billion

• CEO pay vs. median employee salary: 1,690x

7. James Heppelmann

• Company: PTC (PTC)

• Annual compensation: $50 million

• Company revenue: $1.3 billion

• CEO pay vs. median employee salary: 647x

Robert Iger, Walt Disney CEO. (Photo: Kimberly White / Getty Images)

6. Robert A. Iger

• Company: Walt Disney (DIS)

• Annual compensation: $65.6 million

• Company revenue: $69.6 billion

• CEO pay vs. median employee salary: 1,424x

5. John J. Legere

• Company: T-Mobile US (TMUS)

• Annual compensation: $66.5 million

• Company revenue: $43.3 billion

• CEO pay vs. median employee salary: 1,116x

4. Safra A. Catz

• Company: Oracle (ORCL)

• Annual compensation: $108.3 million

• Company revenue: $39.5 billion

• CEO pay vs. median employee salary: 1,205x

3. Nikesh Arora

• Company: Palo Alto Networks (PANW)

• Annual compensation: $125.1 million

• Company revenue: $2.9 billion

• CEO pay vs. median employee salary: 64x

2. David M. Zaslav

• Company: Discovery (DISC.A)

• Annual compensation: $129.5 million

• Company revenue: $10.6 billion

• CEO pay vs. median employee salary: 1,511x

1. Elon Musk

• Company: Tesla (TSLA)

• Annual compensation: $2.3 billion

• Company revenue: $21.5 billion

• CEO pay vs. median employee salary: 40,668x

24/7 Wall Street is a USA TODAY content partner offering financial news and commentary. Its content is produced independently of USA TODAY


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