A professional profile that does not seem to be doing badly in these times of low salaries and skyrocketing prices is that of CEOs of technology companies. Without going, yet, to the cases that we all have in mind, the average salary for the CEO of a “very successful company,” according to the founder of the investment firm Blossom Street Ventures, Sammy AbdullahIt is $325,000 annually. It is true that this represents a reduction of 17% on the 394,000 reached between 2019 and 2020, but it is still 51% more average CEO salary between 1996 and 2007so not so bad.
Another level, much higher, is that of the CEOs of big technology. Here we enter an unreal world for the majority of consumers of their products that reach numbers that surprise and also scandalize. The highest paid CEO currently, according to data collected by the media outlet Xataka, is Alphabetbetter known as Google, Sundar Pichaiwith 226 million dollars, about 210 million euros, year. But this figure does not represent all the economic benefit of being at the helm of Google, given that it is common for CEOs to have compensation plans and shares in their companies. The case of Elon Musk stands out, which we address later. The list with the 17 CEOs who earn the most per year is as follows.
- Sundar Pichai(Alphabet):€210.18 million.
- Hock Tan(Broadcom): €150.66 million.
- Tim Cook(Manzana):€58.59 million.
- Satya Nadella(Microsoft):€45.57 million.
- Shantanu Narayen (Adobe):€42.78 million.
- Reed Hastings (Netflix):€32.55 million.
- Lisa Sue(AMD): €28.83 million.
- Andy Jassy(Amazon):€26.97 million.
- Marc Benioff(Salesforce):€26.97 million
- Mark Zuckerberg (Meta):€25.11 million.
- Cristiano Amon(Qualcomm):€22.32 million.
- Jen Hsun-Huang (NVIDIA):€20.46 million.
- Daniel Zhang(Alibaba):€9.3 million.
- CC Wei(TSMC):€5.58 million.
- Han Jong-hee(Samsung):€5.58 million.
- Pony Ma(Tencent): €3.72 million.
- Elon Musk(Tesla):€0.
Most of these companies are well known, with some exceptions. Broadcom and TSMC are dedicated to semiconductors and Tecent is the company behind wechat and other technological products.
The case of Elon Muskwith a salary of zero dollars at the head of tesla, but where there is a catch. The millionaire had planned to receive the payment of 56 billion dollars, adding bonuses, compensation and shares, but a judge annulled it in January of this year. This amount belongs to a remuneration plan approved in 2018 and would mean the largest salary package ever approved in the United States. The judge considered that the shareholders had received “erroneous” and “misleading” information before giving their approval to the project. The matter is still in dispute and Tesla's board of directors has plans to re-present the remuneration plan to its shareholders next month.