Among the top paid CEOs of 2024, 18 saw their salaries more than double

The year 2024 was a good one for the people who ran some of the country’s biggest companies. CEO pay set another record last year, according to a new study in The Wall Street Journal, with half of the chief executives who made the paper’s list of the highest paid CEOs making $17.1 million or more, up more than 8% from $15.8 million the year prior.

Rick Smith, co-founder of Axon Enterprise, the maker of Taser stun guns, topped the list with a pay package of $165 million (entirely in company stock). Elon Musk earned the least, once again taking home $0 in salary from Tesla. (His compensation is instead structured around stock options that vest based on the company’s performance.)

The widening pay gap between CEOs and their employees is a growing concern. For comparison, the average annual salary for all U.S. workers in 2024 was $66,622, just shy of 2% higher than the $65,470 average in 2023, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In terms of raw numbers, GE’s Lawrence Culp Jr. was second on the list, earning $88.95 million. Blackstone’s Stephen Schwarzman came in third at $84.03 million, Apple’s Tim Cook was fourth at $74.61 million. And KKR’s Joseph Bae rounded out the top five at $73.09 million.

While the average pay package for the top half of the CEOs on the list jumped 8%, several of the 417 executives the Journal examined saw significantly higher increases. All totaled, 18 CEOs saw their total pay increase by more than 100% last year.

Axon’s Smith, for example, saw a 999% increase in total pay from the year prior. Corpay’s Ronald Clarke took home $28.05 million, which only earned him the rank of 54^th overall, but was 951% better than he did in 2023. And Workday’s Carl Eschenback saw a 938% bump, taking him to $26.17 million. Rounding out the top five, James Vena of Union Pacific had a 775% salary increase to $17.64 million, and GE’s Lawrence Culp saw a 505% pay increase to $88.95 million. 

Smith saw a similar big jump in 2019, when his salary soared to $246 million on a stock reward. The 2024 increase is reportedly because of a new program for Axon workers that lets them convert some or all of their salary into restricted shares, which could grow or shrink depending on the company’s performance.

Although many executives saw pay bumps, only one had a pay package worth $100 million or more. In 2020, 17 CEOs in S&P 500 companies made nine figures. Last year, Smith was the only one. And even including execs outside of the S&P, the total was the lowest since 2016, the Journal reported.