The CEO of the corporate that makes stun weapons raked in $165 million final 12 months — 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 government to obtain a pay bundle that eclipsed $100 million, based on The Wall Avenue Journal’s annual evaluation.
Normal Electrical’s Larry Culp trailed behind at $89 million, adopted by Blackstone’s Steve Schwarzman ($84 million) and Apple’s Tim Cook dinner ($75 million).
Smith’s windfall from the publicly traded firm was granted beneath a brand 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 stated. “For me it creates that startup kind of vibe.”
His 2024 payout was a steep bounce from the $40,000 he earned the 12 months earlier than, based on the Journal.
However shares in Axon surged greater than 170% over the previous 12 months, buying and selling at $758 after Monday’s closing bell.
Half of the executives within the evaluation made $17.1 million or extra final 12 months – up from $15.8 million the 12 months earlier than, based on the MyLogIQ information.
Netflix’s co-CEOs Theodore Sarandos and Greg Peters took the No. 8 and 10 spots at $62 million and $60 million, respectively.
Different 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 the earth – was final on the checklist at $0, as his most up-to-date pay bundle stays ensnared in court docket battles.
The Journal report makes use of information from MyLogIQ and consists of CEOs on the job for at the least a 12 months throughout greater than 400 of the S&P 500 corporations.
Most of Smith’s high-dollar compensation bundle got here from a inventory award, not annual wage, as is frequent for S&P 500 CEOs.
Smith, who has led the corporate since 1993, acquired $246 million in compensation in 2019.
He has an estimated internet price of $2.4 billion, based on Forbes.
A number of executives exterior the S&P 500 additionally breached the $100 million line, together with Peter Gassner of cloud-computing firm Veeva Methods at $172 million and Shopify’s Tobias Lutke at $150 million.
However final 12 months marked the smallest variety of CEOs making 9 figures since 2016, based on the Journal.
