Move over Elon Musk, Tim Cook and Satya Nadella, there’s a new high-roller in the C-suite spotlight. In a surprising turn among America’s corporate elite, the highest-paid CEO in America last year wasn’t a household tech titan but Jim Anderson, the newly minted chief of US manufacturer of optical materials and semiconductors Coherent Corp. Anderson walked away with a dazzling $101.5 million paycheck in 2024, making him the only CEO on the Equilar 100 list to cross the nine-figure threshold.
The Equilar 100 list shows the executive compensation among US public companies with revenues of $1 billion or more, based on proxy filings submitted by March 31. Anderson’s compensation, comprised almost entirely of stock awards (99.4%), dwarfed the 2024 median CEO pay of $25.6 million. He joined Coherent, a leader in materials and laser technology, in mid-2024 after leaving Lattice Semiconductor. The announcement of his leaving in June 2024 sent Lattice’s shares tumbling 16% while Coherent’s surged by 23%.
Coming in second on the list of highest-paid CEOs was Starbucks’ Brian Niccol, who received $95.8 million after assuming his role in September 2024. Like Anderson, over 90% of his package was made up of long-term equity awards.
This year’s data reveals continued growth in CEO compensation. Median pay rose 9.5% year over year, driven largely by a dramatic 40.5% jump in stock awards, from $13.2 million in 2023 to $18.6 million in 2024. These awards now make up nearly three-quarters of total CEO compensation.
Meanwhile, cash pay remained relatively flat. Median cash compensation increased only 2%, with base salaries slipping 0.5% and bonuses ticking up just 0.2%. Interestingly, CEO perks rose sharply by 16.9% to a median of $452,730.
In terms of corporate scale, Walmart overtook Apple as the highest-revenue company on the Equilar list, reporting $648.1 billion, outpacing Apple’s $391 billion. The median revenue of companies on the list stood at $24.7 billion.
As companies increasingly tie executive pay to long-term performance and stock growth, the gap between median and top-tier CEO compensation continues to widen.