By Theo Francis

The new boss at Starbucks came very close. The leaders of Apple and GE were close too. But so far, no CEO has scored a $100 million payday for 2024.

If the tally holds, it would be the first time in a decade without a $100 million pay package for a public-company chief executive. Such stock-heavy "moonshot" pay deals, popularized by Elon Musk and Tesla, have drawn investor and court scrutiny in recent years.

Even without a new entry in the $100 million club, CEO compensation at the biggest U.S. companies continued to climb in 2024 and is on track to set a record. More than half of the S&P 500 CEOs in a Wall Street Journal analysis made at least $16.4 million last year, up from $15.9 million in 2023, according to data from MyLogIQ.

The pay packages came in a year when corporate profits swelled and U.S. stock markets hit records. The economic mood has darkened in recent weeks after President Trump launched a trade war that investors and CEOs worry could dent consumer spending and squeeze profits.

Credit Musk for both the boom and the bust in giant pay deals.

His multibillion-dollar pay package from Tesla in 2018 -- valued at more than $2 billion at the time -- foreshadowed a flurry of moonshot arrangements. Like his, most were tied to a series of stock-price and financial-performance conditions.

Companies called the pacts powerful incentives for executives to stick around and hit ambitious goals. Critics called them risky, either as giveaways with readily achievable targets or as incentives to make risky bets in the hope of cashing in.

Some three dozen CEOs at S&P 500 companies received pay packages of at least $100 million from 2020 through 2023 -- including Broadcom's Hock Tan and Alphabet's Sundar Pichai -- along with nine less-senior executives. Another 68 executives at smaller companies received $100 million packages during the same period , including Ari Emanuel of talent agency Endeavor Group in 2021 and DoorDash CEO Tony Xu in 2020.

The number of $100 million-plus pay packages began to fall off sharply around the time Musk's pay package came under fire in Delaware Chancery Court. In January 2024, the court threw out the pay deal, citing scant board deliberations and cozy ties among Musk and Tesla's directors. Since then, Tesla secured another shareholder vote supporting the pay, and the company and shareholder plaintiff continue to wrangle in court.

Driving the broader rise in 2024 pay: fewer CEOs making less than $10 million and a skew to heftier packages, according to the Journal's analysis of than 150 companies. More than a third of those CEOs received pay valued at $20 million or more -- compared with about 25% two years earlier, MyLogIQ data show.

The highest-paid S&P 500 CEO so far was Brian Niccol of Starbucks, at $95.8 million for the fiscal year ending in late September, who took the job that month. (For aggregate figures, the Journal analysis excludes pay for Niccol and other CEOs on the job less than a year.)

More than $80 million of Niccol's 2024 compensation reflects equity and cash making up for pay he forfeited by leaving Chipotle Mexican Grill to run the coffee chain. Much of the total is in equity tied to company performance and vesting over three years, Starbucks said.

Among the 2024 pay packages that approached nine figures last year: $89 million for General Electric's Larry Culp, $84 million for Blackstone's Steve Schwarzman and $74.6 million for Apple's Tim Cook. It marked Cook's fourth straight year over $50 million and Schwarzman's eighth.

About $50 million of Culp's 2024 pay consisted of a restricted stock grant tied to signing a new contract last year. In a statement, GE credited Culp with boosting returns for investors at the company, now called GE Aerospace, and spinning off its healthcare and power-generation units last year.

Nearly all of Schwarzman's pay consisted of carried interest tied to the performance of Blackstone's investment portfolio. The amount reported for 2024 pay doesn't include the $916 million the CEO received in dividends on his roughly 20% stake in the business.

Apple, Broadcom and Alphabet had no comment. Alphabet hasn't disclosed 2024 pay yet for Pichai, who gets equity awards every three years. Endeavor said Emanuel earned $26.5 million of his 2021 pay package, and his pay structure will change with the company's expected sale to private-equity investors.

Top executives receive much of their pay in equity -- typically restricted stock or stock options, often with the award size tied to the company's stock-price performance or financial criteria. Success can swell the value of the pay packages well beyond what is initially reported, and over time, the value often rises.

One CEO making $50 million-plus for the first time: David Gitlin at air-conditioner giant Carrier Global. His reported pay nmore than tripled, to $65.7 million, from about $18 million in 2023, his highest previous pay during five years running Carrier.

About $49 million of Gitlin's pay consisted of a supplemental equity award that Carrier's board compensation committee called critical to retaining him after reports that other companies sought to hire him, the company said in its proxy filing. It also cited company performance and Gitlin's work restructuring the manufacturer.

Equity compensation doesn't always go up, and missing performance criteria can leave pay in limbo for years. DoorDash hasn't yet achieved the stock-price targets necessary for Xu to earn his 2020 equity award, which was granted before the company's initial public offering and valued at about $414 million at the time. Xu's 2023 pay, the most recent reported, totaled $316,431.

"Tony's equity package is entirely performance-based and maintains ambitious goals for the business," a DoorDash spokesman said. "Until those goals are met, his take-home pay is limited primarily to his salary of $300,000."

The Journal reviewed data on 168 S&P 500 companies that had disclosed pay through May 19. The Journal will publish a final ranking of S&P 500 CEO pay later in the spring.

Write to Theo Francis at theo.francis@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 23, 2025 05:30 ET (09:30 GMT)

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