This CEO was paid $165M last year — and it wasn’t – Business News
The CEO of the company that makes stun weapons raked in $165 million last year — dwarfing the payouts handed out to the better-known bosses of Apple, Meta, Nvidia and all different executives within the S&P 500.
Rick Smith — co-founder Axon Enterprises, whose Tasers and physique cameras are utilized by police forces throughout the nation — was the one govt to obtain a pay bundle that eclipsed $100 million, in line with The Wall Street Journal’s annual evaluation.
General Electric’s Larry Culp trailed behind at $89 million, adopted by Blackstone’s Steve Schwarzman ($84 million) and Apple’s Tim Cook ($75 million).
Axon Enterprises CEO Rick Smith poses with the company’s Taser stun gun mounted to a rifle. Getty Images
Smith’s windfall from the publicly traded company was granted below a new program open to all Axon workers that enables them to transform some or all of their pay over seven years into restricted shares, he instructed the Journal.
“One of the things I love about the design is I can make zero — I feel better about making a lot if I can also make zero,” Smith mentioned. “For me it creates that startup kind of vibe.”
His 2024 payout was a steep bounce from the $40,000 he earned the year earlier than, in line with the Journal.
But shares in Axon surged more than 170% over the previous 12 months, trading at $758 after Monday’s closing bell.
Half of the executives within the evaluation made $17.1 million or more last year – up from $15.8 million the year earlier than, in line with the MyLogIQ knowledge.
Netflix’s co-CEOs Theodore Sarandos and Greg Peters took the No. 8 and 10 spots at $62 million and $60 million, respectively.
Other notables included Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff ($55 million), Nvidia boss Jensen Huang ($50 million), Uber’s Dara Khosrowshahi ($39 million), JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon ($38 million) and Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg ($27 million). Tesla’s Elon Musk – the richest particular person on this planet – was last on the record at $0, as his most up-to-date pay bundle stays ensnared in courtroom battles.
Apple CEO Tim Cook participates in an American Workforce Policy Advisory Board assembly with President Trump. REUTERS
Axon CEO Smith addresses Axon workers and lawmakers during a rally on the Arizona state Capitol in Phoenix on March 4, 2025. Rob Schumacher/The Republic / USA TODAY NETWORK by way of Imagn Images
The Journal report makes use of knowledge from MyLogIQ and consists of CEOs on the job for no less than a year throughout more than 400 of the S&P 500 firms.
Most of Smith’s high-dollar compensation bundle got here from a stock award, not annual wage, as is common for S&P 500 CEOs.
Smith, who has led the company since 1993, obtained $246 million in compensation in 2019.
He has an estimated web price of $2.4 billion, in line with Forbes.
Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman attends a assembly with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing. REUTERS
Several executives outdoors the S&P 500 additionally breached the $100 million line, together with Peter Gassner of cloud-computing company Veeva Systems at $172 million and Shopify’s Tobias Lutke at $150 million.
But last year marked the smallest quantity of CEOs making 9 figures since 2016, in line with the Journal.
