Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, has topped the list of the Fortune 500’s most highly compensated CEOs in 2021.
Following Musk, the top ten highest-paid Fortune 500 CEOs in 2021 are all from the tech and biotech industries, including the CEOs of Apple (Tim Cook), Netflix (Reed Hastings), and Microsoft (Satya Nadella).
Musk “realized” nearly $23.5 billion in compensation in 2021 after exercising some Tesla stock options granted in a multiyear “moonshot” grant in 2018.
According to Fortune, that was by far the largest CEO pay package in 2021.
This year’s Fortune 500 ranked Tesla at number 65. In 2021, the company had a blockbuster year, bringing in $53.8 billion in revenue, up 71% from the previous year.
Meanwhile, the Apple CEO earned $770.5 million in 2021 alone, primarily as part of a $1.7 billion 10-year grant of shares. The technology behemoth is ranked third on the Fortune 500.
The company faced challenges due to a global chip shortage, but the company successfully began manufacturing the equipment in-house, according to the report.
NVIDIA co-founder Hang and Netflix CEO Reed Hastings finished third and fourth, respectively.
