Anindita Nayak
Bhubaneswar, June 13, 2024
Carmaker, Tesla Inc’s investors have expressed overwhelming support for a record $56 billion pay package for CEO Elon Musk. The final outcome of the shareholder’s meeting will be revealed at a meeting later this week. Post the approval of shareholders, Musk thanked investors in a post on X.
The board has also approved moving Tesla’s corporate domicile to Texas, where its largest factory is located.
Though Musk’s pay package has made news across the world, he is not the highest-paid CEO in the American industry. There are many, whose pay package has been higher than the proposed pay package of Musk.
For instance, Indian-origin Sundar Pichai, who is the CEO of Alphabet Inc.- the parent company of Google, is the highest-paid CEO in the United States. His pay package was $226 million in 2023. Similarly, Stephen Scherr, the CEO of Hertz- one of the biggest car rental companies in the world, has a pay of $182 million. Barry McCarthy, the CEO of American exercise equipment company, Peloton Interactive is paid $168 million.
While Michael Rapino, the CEO of Live Nation Entertainment has a pay of $139 million. It is $123 million for the social media platform Pininterest’s CEO, William Ready.
Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook’s annual compensation stood at $63 million in FY22, while another Indian-origin CEO, Satya Nadella of Microsoft stood at $48.5 million during this period. Chip giant, Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang drew home a salary of $21.36 million in FY22.
CEO compensation is much debated topic around the world in which top executives draw fat paychecks with the median salary gap rising every year.
In the case of Elon Musk, while some shareholders strongly support Musk’s proposed pay package, others remain opposed to the idea. Norges Bank Investment Management, which oversees Norway’s oil wealth and is the largest sovereign wealth fund, voted against the package due to its disagreement with the size of the award. Several of Tesla’s biggest shareholders, including the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS), the largest pension fund in the United States, also stated they would vote against the pay package.
