Elon Musk, the owner of Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA), received $6.66 billion in compensation last year according to Bloomberg’s annual Pay Index. This is about twelve times more than the second-highest-paid CEO in America.
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Index This year
In Bloomberg’s list, Mike Pykosz, CEO of Oak Street Health Inc (NYSE:OSH) was 2020’s second-highest-paid executive with $568 million.
Business Insider reports that Elon Musk did not receive his billion-dollar compensation in cash, but rather in option awards, “giving him the right to acquire Tesla shares at a set price.”
“The EV maker's surging stock price through 2020 puts Musk at the top of Bloomberg's list for the third year in a row and is an increase his estimated 2019 compensation of $595 million.”
On the other hand, Pykosz's compensation was accrued via salary, bonus, stock awards, option awards, and perks.
Co-CEOs Trevor Bezdek and Douglas Hirsch of GoodRX Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:GDRX) are placed in third and fourth respectively, with an individual compensation of more than $497 million whose majority is comprised of 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).”
One of the biggest drops was that of Tim Cook of Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL), who fell from second last year to 8th, with a compensation of $265 million. “All, other than Musk and Karp, received the majority of their remuneration through stock awards.”
The Bloomberg Pay Index
The Bloomberg Pay Index is an annual score of the highest-paid executives leading publicly traded firms in the U.S.
Besides salary and discretionary bonuses, it comprises performance, pension, as well as deferred compensation, and the value of any stock options or grants.
According to information based on the Index’s data, “the typical CEO among America’s 1,000 biggest listed companies receives 144 times the pay of their median employees.”
This prompted Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren to present a bill in March to punish companies whose CEOs are disproportionately paid compared to workers.
With an estimated net worth of $182 billion, Elon Musk briefly overtook Jeff Bezos as the world’s richest man back then.
Both Tesla and Amazon Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) are part of the Entrepreneur Index, which tracks 60 of the largest publicly traded companies managed by their founders or their founders’ families.
