David V. Auld is the CEO of D.R. Horton, Inc., one of the largest homebuilding companies in America. Its brands include D.R. Horton, Emerald Homes, Express Homes, and Freedom Homes. Headquartered in Arlington, Texas, the company has a market capitalization of $32.96 billion.
Auld is earning $30.57 million each year, while his employees earn a median pay of $107,880. A whopping 73% of shareholders were against Auld’s position as CEO and 90% of Institutional shares voted against him as well. Evidently, the shareholders are unhappy customers
Andrew Wilson is the CEO for the video game company, Electronic Arts, who earns around $39.17 million for his efforts. In the meantime, his workers receive a median pay of $123,935. For a company with a market capitalization of $30.51 billion, you’d think he’d be doing a better job to get such a disproportionate pay.
Electronic Arts is undoubtedly one of the most hated video game companies out there. While their games may still earn plenty of revenue, many have been critical of the company’s implementation of microtransactions in games and downward spiral in terms of game quality. And in part, we have Andrew Wilson to thank for it.
John J. Donahoe II is the CEO of Nike Inc., which has a market capitalization of $191.80 billion. While workers earn a median a salary of just $36,077, Donahoe is raking in $32.92 million in a year. He’s been filling for this role since early 2020 and his excess pay is said to be around $18 million.
In addition to being on the board of directors for Nike, he’s also the chairman of Paypal and was previously the CEO of ServiceNow, a role now filled by William R. McDermott. The Stanford University graduate is married to a former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Eileen Donahoe.
David W. Gibbs is the CEO of Yum! Brands, Inc. which includes Taco Bell, The Habit, KFC and Pizza Hut. Based in Louisville, Kentucky, the company is one of the largest fast-food companies in the world. The company has a market capitalization of $36.88 billion.
Upon appointing David W. Gibbs as CEO of Yum! Brands, around 48% of shareholders were against it. Earning an excess of almost $13 million, Gibbs is earning about $27.59 million annually. His workers earn a measly $13,082 median pay. So, with that said - who the heck decided to pay this guy so much to take all the best items off the taco bell menu?
Richard Beckwitt and Jonathan M. Jaffe are Co-CEOs of the Lennar Corporation, a real estate corporation based in Miami Florida that is one of the leading commercial and residential building companies in the nation. The company has a market capitalization of $28.77 billion.
Together, Beckwitt and Jaffe earn a round $68.09 million for their work as CEOs. And with an utter disregard for employees and customers alike, it’s hard to comprehend how these two became so successful. The median pay for their employees is $101,561, which is likely the cost of one of their cars.
Ernie L. Herrman is the CEO of TJX Companies Inc, a company with a market capitalization of $92 billion. He earns a salary of $31.80 million, while his workers have a median pay of just $14,139. With that said, you can easily see just how underpaid his workers are.
TJX Companies Inc. includes brands like TJ Maxx, Marshalls and HomeGoods. TJ Maxx, which has as many as 1,271 locations, has been around since 1976, while Marshalls with 1,236 locations has been around since 1956 – however, it wasn’t acquired until 1995. Is it fair to say he’s one of the most overpaid CEOs in America? Yeah it is!
Rosalind G. Brewer is the CEO of Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. While her workers earn a median pay of $26,255, she earns a comfortable salary of $28.33 million. Market capitalization for the company is currently at $31.33 billion, so it’s fair to say the company is doing well, but well enough to justify the wage gap? Eh…
In addition to being the CEO of Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc., she’s also the CEO of Sam’s Club and the COO of Starbucks. While her achievements as one of only two black women CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, that doesn’t quite justify the ridiculous amount of money she’s making compared to her underlings.
James Quincey is the CEO of the world-famous Coco-Cola Company, earning a salary of $24.88 million. His workers, on the other hand, earn a median salary of $13,894, which is the lowest on this list. The company is currently boasting a market capitalization of $256.10 billion!
The British-Born James Quincey joined Coca-Cola back in 1996, working for the company in Mexico. In 2015, he had rose the ranks to become COO and would become CEO in 2016. He lives in Atlanta, Georgia with his wife and two children. To be fair, he’s one of the lowest paid on this list - but that doesn’t mean he’s not overpaid, nonetheless.
David J. Lesar is the CEO of CenterPoint Energy, Inc. - a natural gas utility company with a $18.29 billion market cap. Lesar earns a $37.81 million salary but at least his workers are relatively well paid, earning a median salary of $103,170.
Before becoming CEO of CenterPoint Energy Inc., David J. Lesar was the CEO of Halliburton Energy Services from 2000 to 2017. After retiring in 2018 because of the company’s mandatory retiring age, he came out of retirement to become interim CEO of the Health Care Service Corporation, before becoming CenterPoint’s CEO in 2020.
Ronald F. Clarke is the CEO of FleetCor Technologies, Inc. who earns an annual $57.92 million. His workers, on the other hand, earn a median pay of $41,265. The company itself has a market capitalization of $15.81 billion but how much of that is actually the work of the CEO?
FleetCor Technologies, Inc. is an Atlanta-based company that provides businesses with credit cards geared towards expenses related to travel such as gasoline, lodging and tolls. Clarke has been with the company since 2000 taking the company public a decade later. The company has more 800K customers and operates in over 100 countries.
Timothy D. Cook is the CEO of Apple Inc. He earns a salary of $98.73 million, while his workers earn a median pay of $68,254. The company, of course, is hugely successful and not necessarily because of him, given that it’s a household brand. The company has a market capitalization of $2.43 trillion.
Previously under co-founder Steve Jobs, Timothy Cook served as COO, after having had joined the company back in 1998. In 2011, he was made CEO after Steve Jobs death in that year. And while he’s made the company a trillion-dollar company, all of his worker bees are making mere thousands as he rakes in millions.
Andrew R. Jassy makes more money than most of us will ever see in our lives as the CEO of Amazon, earning $212.70 million. And you don’t even want to know the median salary for its workers – that’s just $32,855. Amazon may be a $1.01 trillion company, but does that justify underpaying its workers while overpaying its CEO?
Before being appointed by Jeff Bezos and the Amazon board back in 2020, Jassy served as CEO of Amazon Web Services from 2003 to 2021. Jassy may be the head of the biggest online retail giant but he’s underperforming in terms of the market’s expectations. And in fact, Amazon lost $1 trillion in market capitalization in 2022.
Robert G. Goldstein is the CEO of Las Vegas Sands Corp. He earns $31.2 million while working, earning a median of $35,879. The company has a current market cap of $43.43 billion And although the company may still be worth a pretty penny, Goldstein is not performing up to expectations.
Sands is the third-largest casino company worldwide by revenue but that not the work of its CEO. It’s been around since 1988, when it was founded by Sheldon Adelson. Having been CEO since 2021, the company has seen a -7.9% drop in its performance as of the September 2022 report.
James Dimon is the CEO of JPMorgan Chase & Co. who earns $84.43 million annually. The median salary within the company is $92,112, which isn’t terrible but far below his earnings. The company has brought in as much as $415.99 billion in market capitalization, which makes it one of the biggest companies in the country.
The billionaire banker has been CEO of JPMorgan Chase since 2005. And while he’s made Time magazine’s list of the world's 100 most influential people in 2006, 2008, 2009, and 2011, he hasn’t made a list since. He’s also had some blunders, including a $6 billion financial loss that resulted in a $10 million+ pay cut.
William R. McDermott is the CEO of ServiceNow, Inc., which has a market capitalization of $91.65 billion. While his employees earn a median salary of $233,859, that’s nothing compared to his salary of $165.80 million. But in spite of his pay, he too has not been living up to expectations.
William R. McDermott, sometimes called Bill, was formerly the co-CEO and CEO of SAP SE. During that time, he increased the company’s market value from $39 billion to $156 billion. Since November 2019, he’s been in the CEO role at ServiceNow but isn’t quite showing the same performance.
Glenn Fogel is the CEO of Booking Holdings Inc. – a company with a market capitalization of $96.71 billion. For his role, he earns $53.98 million annually. And this amount isn’t quite justified when you look at the salary for his workers who are earning a median pay of just $58,005 each year.
Booking Holdings Inc. operates several travel fare websites such as Priceline, Kayak, Booking and Rentalcars.com. Their websites are available in around 40 different languages across 200 different countries. Booking holdings, under Fogel, has seen a -2.1% drop in its performance.
Patrick Gelsinger, CEO of Intel Corporation, has in part been responsible for the company’s -5.1% drop in performance, which makes his $178.59 million salary completely unjustified. The median salary of his workers, meanwhile, is $104,400. The company has a current market capitalization of $116.66 billion.
Gelsinger has been based in Silicon Valley as far back as the late 1970s, when he graduated from Stanford University with a master’s degree in Engineering. He became the chief architect of the i486 processor in the ‘80s, which is great and all but it doesn’t mean he quite knows what he’s doing as CEO.
Jay A. Snowden is the CEO of Penn National Gaming, Inc., who earns a salary as high as $65.89 million, while the median salary of his workers is a mere $33,930. The market capitalization of the company is $4.99 billion, which isn’t even impressive when you consider is one of the highest-paid CEOs.
The company has seen only a 3.3% improvement in performance under his leadership. The company, which operates in 20 states, owns numerous casinos under its label, including online casinos. It’s also the owner of the digital media company Barstool Sports, which it acquired for $388 million.
Fabrizio Freda is the CEO of Estee Lauder Companies Inc. He earns an annual salary of $66.00 million, while workers receive a median pay of $33,586. The company boasts a market capitalization of $89.14 billion, but how much of that is the work of Fabrizio Freda?
The company is a household name already and its seen only a 15.9% increase in sales. Italian CEO Freda, born in Naples, graduated from the University of Naples Federico II back in March 1981. Not much else is known about his life but he has been the CEO of Estee Lauder since 2009.
At last, we have David M. Zaslav, the CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. Combined with an annual salary, a hefty bonus and over $190 million in stock options, Zaslav’s pay is said to be around $246.57 million, making him one of the highest-paid CEOs in the world. His workers on the other hand, earn a median salary of $82,964.
Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. has a current market capitalization of $37.18 billion. Since becoming CEO, Zaslav has been heavily criticized for shrinking the content library of the HBO Max streaming service, which resulted in a loss of $25 billion off their market capitalization.
Martin Shkreli is easily one of the most notorious CEOs of all time and it would be downright criminal not to include him on our list. His net worth was around $70 million as the former CEO of former CEO of Retrophin and Turing Pharmaceuticals, but that was before he became a convicted felon.
He first drew negative press in 2015 after manufacturing license for the antiparasitic drug Daraprim and raising its price by as much as 5,455%. That same year, he was charged with two counts of security fraud, unrelated to Daraprim, for essential drawing investors into a Ponzi scheme. He ended up getting sentenced to seven years in prison but was released early in 2022.
Co-founder and CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg may be the Face behind Facebook, but his Monopoly on social media and usage personal data for advertisers and app developers. While he claims he isn’t selling our data, he’s certainly giving it away.
Now the owner and CEO of Meta, Zuckerberg has recently laid off thousands of workers as he continues rolling in the cash. Declaring 2023 to be the “year of efficiency,” Zuckerberg has no qualms about letting workers go. This topped with the increased censorship on the Facebook platform has made him one of the most despised CEOs in recent years.
Warren Buffett is the current CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, a textile manufacturing firm. With a net worth of over $108 billion, he’s the world’s fifth wealthiest individual. Through a series of partnerships and investments, Warren Buffet rose to become a millionaire and eventually took a majority control of Berkshire Hathaway.
Warren Buffet receives just $100,000 a year, but honestly, even that’s too much as he has billions in dividends coming every year. The man could stop at anytime, but it seems he just won’t. Interestingly, he has avoided investing in new social media companies due to uncertainty about their future.
Elon Musk is the second-wealthiest individual in the world, as the CEO of SpaceX, Twitter and Tesla, Inc. His net worth is around $196 billion as of February 2023. While much of that comes from stakes in his own companies, he gave himself a hefty CEO salary, earning as much as $23.5 billion for just Tesla alone in 2021.
And that’s also unearned when you consider that in December 2022, Tesla’s stock values drastically declined leading to a $200 billion loss from his net worth. Musk now gets no compensation for his work. His money comes from his investments, which is probably for the best since he’s not very good at his job.
As the co-founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates served a variety of roles during his career at the company. In addition to chairman, president and chief software architect, he was also CEO. Raking in billions, his business practices were deemed by many to be anti-competitive. By 1995, he was named by Forbes as the richest man in the world.
His salary is currently said to be around $5 billion each year. However, he no longer works as the CEO of Microsoft, a role now fulfilled by Satya Narayana Nadella. Much of his work is now dedicsted to philanthropic efforts such as climate change and global access to energy.
Sundar Pichai is the CEO of Alphabet and its infinitely more famous subsidiary, Google. Born in Madurai, India, Pichai earned a master’s degree from Stanford and continued his education at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He joined Google in 2004, leading in product management and innovation.
By 2015, Pichai became the CEO of Google. He earns a base salary of $2 million per year which may not seem like a lot at first for being the CEO of freaking GOOGLE but he earns a lot more than that from his stocks, taking home an additional $275 million in 2023 alone.
Jeff Bezos is the founder, executive chairman, and formerly the CEO of Amazon. With a net worth of $128 billion, he’s the third richest man in the world. For his role as CEO, Bezos received around $1.7 million but through his holdings earned billions of dollars.
Bezos has been widely criticized for his treatment of workers including employee mismanagement, low wages, poor working conditions and utilization of forced labor in China. On top of this, he’s been criticized for tax avoidance, his disdain for labor unions, price control efforts and removal of competitor products from the Amazon website. The list goes on…
Susan Wojcicki was the CEO of Youtube from 2014 to 2023. As of 2022, her estimated net worth was $765 million. While working with Google back in 2006, she managed the $1.65 billion purchase of YouTube and the purchase of DoubleClick for $3.1 billion. After becoming CEO of YouTube, its user base had increased to 2 billion.
For her work as CEO, she was estimated to be making as much as $374,829 per MONTH. By contrast, the average annual pay for a YouTube worker is $119k per year, meaning she made three times as much in a month as a typical YouTube worker makes in a year.
Bernardo Hees was the CEO of Heinz from 2015 to 2019. For his compensation, he earned around $5 million. Before serving as CEO of Kraft Heinz, he served as CEO of Burger King. After four years at Heinz, he stepped down from his position as CEO, and was replaced by Miguel Patricio with nearly 120 years of experience at Anheuser-Busch InBev.
Bernardo Heese was said to have an approval rating of just 25%. Upon taking this position, there were mass layoffs and cost-cutting across the company. Company culture changed as well, including the removal of free snacks from its Chicago headquarters. It also banned competitor food products in the office. He was a jerk.
Larry Ellison was the former CEO of the Oracle Corporation, who has amassed a fortune of around $102.6 billion, which makes him the sixth-wealthiest person in the world. Owning 42.9% of shares of Oracle Corporation, he continues to obtain massive wealth, despite no longer being CEO of Oracle.
For his work as CEO, Ellison earned more than $130 Million, according to the Wall Street Journal. His base pay was just $1 but he received a bonus of almost $8 million and around $130 million in stock options. How could you even need more money than that? Retire already!
Which he did, but only as CEO of Oracle. The position is now held by Safra A. Catz who is also overpaid at around $138 million – same as Ellison.
