The era of the $100 million to $200 million CEO paycheck is back — and bigger than ever.
A growing number of corporate leaders are collecting nine-figure compensation packages — as boards increasingly embrace so-called "moonshot" pay plans that tie massive stock awards to ambitious long-term performance goals.
According to The Wall Street Journal's annual CEO compensation ranking, more U.S. chief executives topped the once-rare $100 million pay threshold in 2025 than in any year since 2021. Nearly a dozen CEOs received pay packages worth more than $200 million.
The trend reflects a dramatic shift in executive compensation, with companies relying less on cash bonuses and more on stock awards that can become extraordinarily valuable if aggressive performance targets are met.
Towering above everyone else was Tesla CEO Elon Musk, whose 2025 compensation package was valued at $158 billion — a figure that exceeded the combined compensation of the other 391 CEOs included in the Journal's ranking. The Journal noted that Musk's package could ultimately be worth even more if Tesla achieves future performance goals.
Outside of Musk, the second-highest-paid CEO was Shankh Mitra of healthcare and senior-housing real estate investment trust Welltower. Mitra's compensation package was valued at $821 million, making it one of the largest CEO awards of the past decade.
Nearly all of Mitra's compensation came in stock grants. The award is heavily performance-based, with half of the shares not scheduled to vest until 2031 and the remainder tied to aggressive targets for Welltower's market value and stock performance relative to major indexes.
Welltower stood out for another reason: three additional executives also received compensation packages exceeding $100 million.
$1.3 BILLION PAYDAY
Combined, the four executives were awarded roughly $1.3 billion in compensation, making Welltower only the second public company in the past decade to have four executives receive nine-figure pay packages in a single year.
The surge in mega-paydays was not limited to the largest corporations.
More than half of the executives receiving over $100 million worked at companies outside the S&P 500.
Among them were Dylan Field, chief executive of design software company Figma, whose compensation package was valued at $864 million, and Kaz Nejatian, chief executive of online real estate platform Opendoor Technologies, who received compensation valued at $741 million.
The Journal found that median pay for S&P 500 CEOs climbed to a record $17.9 million in 2025. Half of all CEOs received raises of at least 9.8%, while the number of executives earning more than $50 million continued to rise.
The rankings also highlight how executive compensation often bears little resemblance to shareholder returns.
Robinhood Markets delivered the strongest one-year shareholder return among companies in the Journal's survey, with shares soaring 204%.
Yet CEO Vladimir Tenev's reported compensation was just $3 million.
At the same time, Tenev benefited from an earlier stock award that ultimately delivered shares worth roughly $1.1 billion after the company's stock surged.
THE TOP TIER
Several familiar Wall Street and corporate leaders also crossed into the upper tier of executive pay:
• David Zaslav of Warner Bros. Discovery received compensation valued at $165 million as the company's shares posted a 173% one-year return.
• Hock Tan of Broadcom collected a $205 million package while the semiconductor giant delivered a 120% shareholder return. Broadcom said the award is tied to future artificial intelligence revenue targets and that Tan will not receive additional equity grants through 2030.
• Stephen Schwarzman of Blackstone received $126 million.
• Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon received $119 million.
• Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora earned $100 million.
• Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser received $96 million.
• Wells Fargo CEO Charles Scharf earned $95 million.
The rise of these so-called moonshot compensation packages echoes the trend that followed Musk's landmark $55.8 billion 2018 Tesla award, which helped popularize stock-based incentives tied to long-term performance hurdles.
Supporters argue the arrangements align executives with shareholders by rewarding only exceptional performance.
Critics counter that many of the goals are structured in ways that can generate enormous payouts regardless of whether shareholder returns justify the rewards.
For now, however, the message from corporate boardrooms appears clear: the ceiling for CEO pay continues to move higher.