How Much The Highest Paid CEOs In The US Actually Make

Americans live in a truly unique consumer landscape. The United States is home to some of the most innovative companies on the planet, and all kinds of consumer conveniences can be found throughout the nation as a result. While others may benefit from technology breakthroughs earlier (things like mobile wallets and tap-to-pay technology were mainstream in China well over a decade ago), there's no denying the potency of corporate innovation across America.

In addition to the free market arena that allows great ideas to take off rapidly and flourish, the American economy also frequently rewards those standing behind the companies and products that change the marketplace. CEOs of some of the most important companies in America make many orders of magnitude more than the average worker. There's certainly a debate to be had over the validity of paying a CEO tens of millions of dollars, but that's a discussion for another day. Today, let's look at an overview of the corporate executives who rake in the most money as part of their salary package, and explore some potential reasons for such astronomical spending on those who guide their companies. Many of these brands are publicly traded companies, suggesting that the mind-bending compensation packages these executives take in is reward specifically for their proven ability to navigate a cutthroat market that consistently demands ever-higher profits without losing what makes the company special. No matter the case, these are the best-paid CEOs (via core salary data from AFL-CIO) and the companies they ply their trade for.

Perhaps surprisingly, Tim Cook of Apple is only the 15^th best-paid CEO in America, while his company competes for the top spot among corporate giants in total valuation. In the last 10 years, Apple stock has grown by nearly 1,000% and its valuation has spiked from roughly $500 billion to well over $3 trillion. Those years have been helmed by Cook (CEO since 2011). During his tenure as the company's top boss, Apple has launched the AirPods and Apple Watch, and brought tremendous capability upgrades to its existing products.

Cook earned a 2023 compensation package of $63,209,845. A bit more context from Visual Capitalist brings in the knowledge that a little under $14 million of that total pay figure is structured as a traditional cash salary with the rest coming as stock options, perks, and other non-cash compensation. It's worth noting, however, that Northwest places his total earnings for 2025 at a far higher figure, ranging all the way up to $770.5 million (still only making him second on this list, however). Although that's a truly staggering jump from the $74.6 million he earned in 2024 (via The Hollywood Reporter).

William Lansing's total compensation for 2023 was $66,349,962. That's a dramatic improvement over the almost $19 million total compensation that ERI reports he received the year prior (with $1.95 million in cash salary). Visual Capitalist notes that Lansing's 2023 cash salary was valued at roughly the same level ($2 million), so his non-cash incentives obviously were ramped up tremendously.

Lansing is the CEO of a company that you'll know by an acronym. The Fair Isaac Corporation, or FICO, is an analytics company. It produces consumer credit scores (among other data products within the financial realm) that help businesses determine when and how to lend money to borrowers. FICO scores are notoriously fickle beasts. There are plenty of simple ways to positively impact your credit score. But an equally large number of seemingly useful strategies that will actually reduce it — like closing an account that you no longer use.

Featured image by Coolcaesar via Wikimedia Commons | Cropped and scaled | CC BY-SA 4.0]

Lyft is Uber's primary U.S. competitor within the ride hailing marketplace (outside of traditional taxis, that is). The brand operates all across the United States, and elsewhere, bringing an efficient means of calling for a ride to the masses and giving Uber a sparring partner that allows for greater consumer choice.

AFL-CIO lists Lyft's CEO, David Risher as the 13^th best paid CEO of 2023, with a total salary package worth $78,238,027. The New York Post reported in 2023 when Risher was just in the door at Lyft that he was set to be paid a base salary of $725,000 per year with performance incentives tied directly to hitting share price targets (set in nine intervals between $15 per share and $80). Achieving the entirety of these goals would yield Risher a payout of just under $1 billion in total compensation. However, the company's stock position has remained in the mid-to-low teens since cratering during the pandemic, so it remains to be seen what Risher's ultimate compensation value will eventually rise to.

Founded in 2012, AppLovin is the mobile audience connection tool founded by Adam Foroughi and two others. Foroughi is the brand's CEO and with a company valuation now standing at $11 billion, the co-founder is personally worth at least $2.6 billion. The brand features all manner of advertising and marketing solutions for businesses seeking to connect with users and target customers, including new AI tools. It's also a mobile game maker with a portfolio of titles that reach a total audience of roughly 700 million people around the world. It's this reach that gives the brand its value, in large part. With so many gamers engaging with its content, the platform is a rich marketplace for generating ad revenue. Foroughi was paid a total salary package of $83,361,678 in 2023. Foroughi remains a major shareholder in the business, too. He owns roughly 12.5% of the company personally, with over 8 million shares.

Endeavor Group Holdings was founded in 2009 with the merging of Endeavor Talent Agency and William Morris Agency. It's a talent and media agency holding organization that represents talent across the spectrum of the entertainment marketplace. The brand is engaged in sports analytics, too. The company is also a majority owner in TKO Group Holdings, a brand the encompasses UFC and WWE.

As Endeavor's CEO, Ari Emanuel is one of the highest-paid executives in the business world, to top off all the lofty areas of influence that the company sees its reach extending to. Parallels to the show "Entourage" point to Emanuel as the real-life inspiration for the character Ari Gold, with both the real individual and character representing entertainment personalities like Larry David, Mark Wahlberg (who produced the show), and Vin Diesel. Emanuel was paid a total compensation package of $83,879,505 in 2023.

Pablo Legorreta is the founder, CEO, and chairman of Royalty Pharma. The company got its start in 1996 and has since become the largest owners of royalty income within the pharmaceutical industry. It's not a pharmaceutical brand itself, but rather a private equity firm specializing in the acquisition of assets within this sector. In addition to the $84,837,077 that Royalty Pharma paid Legorreta in total compensation in 2023, he is the sole owner of the brand RP Management, the investment management firm overseeing the $17 billion in assets that Royalty Pharma commands. Royalty Pharma completed an IPO in 2020. The company stock has delivered a largely flat performance over the last year and delivers a 2.64% dividend to investors. The company owns revenue shares in well-known drugs like Humira, Lyrica, and IMBRUVICA, among more than 80 other acquisitions the brand has made in the nearly 30 years since its founding.

Charter Communications is a powerhouse in the multimedia industry. Charter delivers its most prominent products through the brand name Spectrum, an internet solution that nearly 111 million Americans rely on. The company also provides phone service and cable television. The brand has called itself "America's fastest growing TV, internet, and voice company."

With these hefty service levels comes an unsurprising compensation package for its CEO (who also serves as Charter's president). Chris Winfrey has served in these dual roles since 2022 and was appointed to the Board of Directors in November 2023. That year, he hauled in a tremendous $89,077,078 in total salary value. This was broken down into a base salary of $1,700,000 with no bonus, but included option awards worth nearly $75 million and $3.5 million in non-equity incentive plan compensation. Winfrey has been with Charter since 2010 (serving then as its CFO) and was instrumental in the 2016 restructuring with Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks.

From here, total compensation takes an even sharper turn northward. Shephen Schwarzman is among the elite grouping of CEOs who took home a total compensation package north of $100 million. AFL-CIO clocks just seven total individuals who make up this exclusive club. Schwarzman co-founded the Blackstone Group in 1985 with Peter Peterson. His total compensation for 2023 was $119,784,375, with a base cash salary of $350,000 and the remainder tagged as simply "other compensation."

Initially, Blackstone focused on mergers and acquisitions, but has since become an investment firm that dips its toes into just about any arena it can find. Blackstone has become the largest worldwide owner of commercial property and is also the largest discretionary allocator to hedge funds. Blackstone is further still, a primary name in the world of credit to companies across size ratings, making it a purveyor of just about any kind of business you may be able to dream up.

Wheels Up Experience is a charter airline specializing in "on demand," private air travel services. It's majority shareholder is Delta Air Lines and is a unique stock market buy, listed on the New York Stock Exchange at just over $1. This brings the company into penny stock territory. The company has seen a slow downtrend in its pricing with a 52-week high at $4.59, which potentially labels it as a rebound opportunity or a company to skip, depending on your own personal research.

George Mattson, the company's CEO was a longtime member of the Delta Board of Directors and was named in his current position in 2023. That year, he earned a base salary of $144,231 with stock awards valued at $148,400,000 (among other compensation streams). His total salary package was valued at $148,978,853. Wheels Up Experience was founded in 2013 and offers a range of services to members today. Members can reserve seats on private jets in its fleet and has been growing in recent years, acquiring other charter brands in the sectors. In 2022 it was the third-largest charter and fractional airline operator in the United States.

Coty, the conglomerate beauty brand named Sue Nabi as its CEO in 2020. Before that she founded the skincare brand Orveda, was the president of L'Oréal, and was tasked with revitalizing the Lancôme brand within its orbit. Coty's portfolio is similarly impressive, with brands like Sally Hansen, Rimmel, Covergirl, and many others under its management umbrella.

Nabi earned a total compensation package of $149,429,486 in 2023, with stock awards making up the bulk of these earnings. Her base salary was still significantly impressive though, valued at $3,549,000. The Algerian-born beauty brand titan is perhaps well worth the astronomical figure, with experience in both launching a tremendously successful range and presiding over numerous other huge corporations within this world, Nabi is significantly experienced (with roughly three decades in the market). Nabi is also by far the highest paid female C-level executive in any corner of the marketplace.

Palo Alto Networks was founded in 2005 and delivers cybersecurity services to enterprise clients all around the world. The brand is currently hyping up its AI-powered defense solutions (underpinned by its Precision AI system). The company delivers IT support and network security to government clients globally, as well, giving it numerous avenues to generate revenue.

Since 2018, the company's CEO has been Nikesh Arora, who previously worked as a Google senior executive and served as the president of SoftBank Group (from 2014 to 2016). In 2023, Arora took home a staggering $151,425,203 in total compensation for his services at the helm of Palo Alto Networks. He earned a base cash salary of $750,000, which, if not for his massive stock award additions would place him just outside the top 1% of earners (a threshold beginning at roughly $780,000, although he'd still sit firmly within the top 10%). Indeed, Arora's stock awards place him among just four CEOs to earn over $150 million (with over $145 million in stock awards alongside other compensation features).

Visual Capitalist lists Hock Tan as 2023's highest paid CEO, but data elsewhere suggests he is merely third — and a marvel of enormous earning no matter how you slice it. Outlets agree on his total compensation, however. In 2023 the CEO of Broadcom earned a total salary package of $161,826,161, with $1.2 million structured as cash salary payments (to the tune of an even $100,000 per month). Nearly the entirety of his total salary was delivered in stock awards, making him tremendously wealthy in the process.

Broadcom is a technology company focused on delivering semiconductors and other crucial components in communication, entertainment, and analytical technology that powers the modern world. Rooted in the early days of AT&T and Bell Labs, Broadcom is deeply rooted within the world of communication technology and has added other segments to its brand like data center services, as well as wireless communication technology that underpins all kinds of crucial devices in both enterprise and consumer marketplaces.

The Carlyle Group is a private equity firm with almost half a trillion dollars in assets under management ($447 billion). It touts itself as one of the world's "leading global investment firms." Founded in 1987, the brand has grown by leaps and bounds to include a team of more than 2,300 institutional investors across 29 global offices. Target sectors include private credit and real estate assets.

The company brought Harvey Schwartz into the fold early in 2023 to run its operations as CEO. Between 1997 and 2018 he worked at Goldman Sachs, leaving that investment banking monolith as its president and co-COO. He has also spent time at Citigroup and launched his career in private equity at J.B. Hanauer & Co. Schwartz's compensation for 2023 totaled $186,994,098, with $838,462 coming as cash salary. He also earned $6 million as non-equity incentive plan compensation and nearly $180 million in stock awards.

Jon Winkelried has been the CEO of TPG since 2021 and was a member of the company's Board of Directors since it launched. He spent nearly three decades working within the Goldman Sachs company in various positions, including as a partner (1990 to 2009) and president and co-COO (2006-2009). He joined TPG in 2015 after spending time at a number of other investment firms. TPG (known previously as Texas Pacific Group and later TPG Capital) was founded in 1992 as a private equity firm and now maintains $246 billion in assets under management with over 30 global offices and 650-plus investment and operations pros in its ranks.

Winkelried is the highest-paid CEO in AFL-CIO's accounting, earning a truly staggering $198,685,926 in total compensation for his work throughout 2023. He brought in $509,615 in salary pay for the year along with $13 million in other compensation. As is the case with all wildly well-paid CEOs, the lion's share of his earnings come in the form of stock awards. In Winkelried's case, it's to the tune of $185 million, outpacing the total compensation package of every other CEO aside from Carlyle's Harvey Schwartz (who only just surpasses that figure in total earnings).

The highest paid CEO in America shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. Elon Musk, the world's richest man, runs a cross section of the country's most high profile companies, including Tesla, SpaceX, and Twitter (now X). Musk is a truly unique case. He doesn't take a salary in the classical sense, and AFL-CIO actually lists his compensation at $0. Yet, the majority of his wealth is derived from his stake in Tesla, and The Motley Fool has pegged his earnings for 2023 at $1.403 billion.

Even without a formal salary from Tesla, Musk has remained at the pinnacle of total compensation for many years due to his options plan. Musk was able to purchase Tesla shares at an option price of $23.33 apiece, allowing him to gobble up assets worth over 10 times that value at the end of 2024.