Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has been declared the highest paid chief executive in the U.S., as per a new list of the top 100 CEOs based on their salaries. Of Indian-origin, Nadella replaced Oracle’s Larry Ellison, who acquired the top position last year.
Warren Buffett at 100th spot
The study conducted by Equilar took into account the CEOs’ pay of the top 100 public sector companies based on revenue in the U.S. According to the study, Nadella, with a salary of $84.3 million per annum, tops the list for this year followed by Oracle’s Larry Ellison ($67.3 million for a year). Qualcomm’s Steven Mollenkopf, with an annual salary of $60.7 million, managed to take third place in the list.
Other CEOs who made it into the top ten this year are Robert Iger of Walt Disney, Larry Merlo of CVS Health, K Rupert Murdoch of Twenty-First Century Fox, W. James McNerney Jr. of Boeing, James Gorman of Morgan Stanley, David Cote of Honeywell International and Kenneth Chenault of American Express.
Indira Nooyi, CEO of Pepsi and also of Indian-origin, has been placed at the 19th position with a pay package of $60.7 million per annum. Well-known Warren Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway, with compensation of $464,011 million, has been given the last spot. Further, the median wage of 100 CEOs was found to be $14.3 million, which suggests an increase of 5% for last year compared to 2013.
Actual salary of Microsoft CEOs
However, Microsoft claims that Nadella’s salary for 2014 amounts to just $22.75 million, considering the annual value of special and one-time equity awards, according to the Business Standard. To break it down, Nadella obtained an annual executive compensation worth $11.6 million and a CEO transition award, given only once, of $2.7 million. Also the CEO got a Long-Term Performance-Based Stock Award (LTPSA) that amounts to $8.45 million. When all the above three are added, it results in a total of $22.75 million, according to Microsoft.
Nadella joined Microsoft in 1992 after working for a while at Sun Microsystems, which is now part of Oracle. After having worked for 23 years in the company in various positions, Nadella was appointed as CEO of Microsoft.
