Nice job, even if you lose it.
As SoftBank takes control of WeWork in a deal that will value the company at between $7.5 billion and $8 billion, former CEO Adam Neumann is getting paid $185 million to walk away from the company, CNBC has reported.
That’s more than the top annual compensation last year for CEOs who kept their jobs.
In addition to a $185 million consulting fee, Neumann’s parachute includes $1 billion for his shares in the company and a $500 million credit line to help repay his loans to J.P. Morgan Chase, CNBC reported.
Here’s how Neumann’s $185 million payout stacks up against other CEOs’ 2018 salaries, according to an annual survey by the Associated Press and Equilar, a compensation consultant.
Because CEO pay packages may include various forms of compensation, calculating the total value can be challenging. Other CEO pay surveys rank the top earners differently.
The highest-paid CEO according to Bloomberg News is Elon Musk. Last year, he earned an estimated $513 million, based on stock option awards, not salary compensation. Musk’s salary was an estimated $56,000. Bloomberg also calculated that Brendan Kennedy, CEO of Tilray, a pharmaceutical and cannabis company, earned $256 million last year.
According to the Associated Press/Equilar survey, Hock E. Tan, of Broadcom, was the highest-paid CEO last year, with a salary of around $103 million.
CBS CEO Leslie Moonves came in second with $68 million, and Transdigm Group CEO W. Nicholas Howley, with $61 million, was third.
From 1990 to 2016, the median CEO pay has risen 438%, according to a Harvard study, and by next year is projected to be 514% higher.
Other top earners included Time Warner’s CEO Jeffrey L. Bewkes, with $49 million; TripAdvisor’s Stephen Kaufer, $43 million; Discovery Communications CEO David M. Zaslav, $42 million; Walt Disney’s Robert A. Iger, $36 million; Wynn Resorts‘ Stephen A. Wynn, $35 million; Brenton L. Saunders of Allergan, $33 million, and Comcast’s Brian L. Roberts, $33 million.
Disclosure: Comcast is the owner of NBCUniversal, parent company of CNBC and CNBC.com.
