US CEO Salaries Revealed: Blackstone Tops, Peloton and Hertz Surpass Apple

Among the top 10 highest-paid CEOs in the United States last year, six were found not to belong to S&P 500 listed companies. CEOs of Pinterest, Peloton, Hertz, and others received compensation packages exceeding $100 million, surpassing Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, the company with the highest market capitalization.

Stephen Schwarzman, CEO of the private equity firm Blackstone, received a compensation package of $253 million last year, ranking first.
[Image source=Reuters Yonhap News]

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported this on the 4th (local time), citing data from C-Suite Comp, which analyzes executive compensation. Among the companies with CEOs in the top 10 highest-paid list, only four belonged to the S&P 500 index: Alphabet (2nd), Live Nation (5th), Oracle (6th), and Apple (10th). The others?Blackstone (1st), Hertz (3rd), Peloton (4th), Sarepta Therapeutics (7th), Pinterest (8th), and CS Disco (9th)?were not S&P 500 listed companies. WSJ noted, "CEO salaries in the U.S. do not necessarily correlate with company size."

Stephen Schwarzman, CEO of private equity firm Blackstone, topped the list with a compensation package of $253 million last year. This surpassed Sundar Pichai, CEO of publicly traded Alphabet, who earned $226 million.

Notably, despite Blackstone’s stock price falling 40% last year, Schwarzman’s compensation increased by more than 50% compared to the previous year ($160 million). Blackstone explained, "30% of Schwarzman’s compensation last year reflects the investment performance from 2021 when the company’s stock price doubled." The company did not disclose the exact cash portion of this compensation.

Following him, Stephen Scherr, CEO of rental car company Hertz, received a total of $182 million including stock options, and Barry McCarthy, CEO of home fitness company Peloton, received $168 million. These amounts far exceed the $99 million earned by Apple’s Tim Cook.

Despite their companies’ stock prices plummeting, these CEOs secured high salaries. Scherr, a former CFO of Goldman Sachs, took over as Hertz CEO in February last year, after which Hertz’s stock price dropped 22%, a larger decline than the S&P 500’s 16% drop during the same period. Peloton’s stock price also plunged 79% last year as the pandemic-related boom ended, yet its CEO received a high salary. Peloton’s stock has continued to decline by 3% this year due to decreased demand for its flagship exercise bikes.

Pinterest CEO Bill Ready earned $123 million last year, of which approximately $110 million was in stock options. However, Ready’s stock rose more than 20% last year and increased by 13% in the first half of this year. The company noted that since most of Ready’s compensation is stock-based, "if the company does not perform well, Bill’s compensation will also be affected."

Additionally, CS Disco, a legal services company based in Austin, Texas, is the smallest company among those with CEOs in the top 10 highest-paid list. Co-founder and CEO Kiwi Camara received a base salary of $500,000 along with $109 million in stock options. Although CS Disco’s stock price surged 30% this year, it remains more than 75% below early last year’s levels.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.