Elon Musk was the Highest Paid CEO in 2021

According to the Fortune 500, Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, was the highest-paid chief executive officer in 2021. After exercising the Tesla stock options issued in a multiyear “moonshot” giant in 2018, Musk received a salary of nearly $23.5 billion (around Rs 1,82,576 crore). According to Fortune 500, that was the highest salary ever paid to a CEO.

Musk was the Highest Paid CEO

Musk, who runs Tesla and SpaceX and may soon buy Twitter, is at the top of Fortune’s list of highly compensated CEOs. Others, though, are also in the tech and biotech industries. Tim Cook, the chief executive officer of Apple, Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft, and Reed Hastings, the CEO of Netflix, are among these leaders.

According to Fortune, Cook was paid $770.5 million in 2021 alone, which was a portion of a $1.7 billion 10-year stock grant. He was ranked number two on the list. Apple’s market worth increased by $2.2 trillion during his tenure. Therefore his remuneration is justified in specific ways. In the Fortune 500, Apple is ranked third.

In 2021, Nvidia’s Jensen Huang got $561 million in pay, while Cook cornered the second one. Huang “realized around $507 million from expiring choices awarded in 2011 and 2012, representing the approximately 60x increase in the company’s share price over the decade,” according to a spokeswoman for Fortune 500.

Netflix’s Reed Hastings is ranked fourth, having recently announced many new initiatives to boost earnings for the company, which has been beset by difficulties such as account sharing and inferior content compared to its competitors. According to the Fortune 500, Hastings made $453.5 million last year. A Netflix spokeswoman, on the other hand, refuted the report. “His pay in 2021 was $40.8 million, including $650,000 in cash and $39.7 million in stock options,” the spokeswoman was quoted as adding.

Last year, Microsoft’s Satya Nadella ranked seventh, with $309.4 million in salary. In 2021, he was also named “the most underestimated” CEO, a designation he has held for the past six years. Since 2017, Nadella has been the CEO of Microsoft.

Also read: Telegram Might Announce Premium Subscription Plan for Users