25 Highest Paid CEOs 鈥 2024 & Their College Degrees
July 25, 2024
Highest Paid CEOs 2024 – I am not against CEOs being compensated for their job performance. I feel like that little disclaimer was necessary because as I discuss the highest-paid CEOs over the coming paragraphs, you might notice a somewhat sardonic鈥攎aybe even condemnatory鈥攖one. Like, for example, when I say that the salaries of the highest-paid CEOs stretch the limits of credulity. Because while the highest-paid CEOs are often brilliant and remarkable people in their own ways, their salaries, when contrasted with what average workers make in a given year, are absurd.
show that CEOs make 344 times the average yearly salary of nonsupervisory workers. One report found that CEOs were paid 399 times as much as a typical worker, a increase since 1978. In other words: it hasn鈥檛 always been like this. In fact, in 1965, CEOs made a modest 21 times more than the average worker.
But CEOs aren鈥檛 the only ones earning exorbitant sums in 2024. MLB and NBA players make oodles of cash鈥攖his offseason Shohei Ohtani signed a deal with the Dodgers worth $700 million; Jayson Tatum just re-upped with the Celtics to the tune of $62 million a year鈥攂ut since I like baseball and basketball, my tone in those articles was more celebratory than it was reproachful. So with the caveat that I might be just a little bit biased, check out a list of the highest-paid CEOs below.
If you are considering a career in business one day, check out our 50 Best Colleges for Finance and 50 Best Colleges for Business.
Highest paid CEOs – 2024
25) Vicente Reynal, Ingersoll Rand – $54.5 million
College degree: Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology
24) Satya Nadella, Microsoft – $54.9 million
College degree: Electrical Engineering, Manipal Institute of Technology
Highest Paid CEOs 2024 (Continued)
23) Richard Handler, Jefferies Financial Group – $56.9 million
College degree: Economics, University of Rochester
22) Mark Anderson, Alteryx – $57.1 million
College degree: Economics and Business, York University
21) Robert Antokol, Playtika Holding Corp. – $57.2 million
College degree: Practical Engineering, Ort Braude College
Highest CEO Salary – Highest Paid CEOs 2024 (Continued)
20) David Epstein, Seagen – $57.5 million
College degree: Pharmacy, Rutgers University
19) Hock Tan, Broadcom – $60 million
College degree: Mechanical Engineering, MIT
18) Tim Cook, Apple – $63.2 million
College degree: Industrial Engineering, Auburn University
Tim Cook鈥檚 2023 salary of $63.2 million is chump change compared with some of the highest-paid CEOs at the top of this list. But don鈥檛 let that trifling sum fool you鈥攈e made $98 million in 2021, and $99 million in 2023. And, by the way, his net worth is estimated to be around .
Cook, who鈥檚 been Apple鈥檚 chief executive officer since 2011, has received considerable media praise for his commitment to . And rightfully so. At the same time, Apple鈥攄uring Cook鈥檚 tenure as CEO鈥攈as been criticized for subjecting their factory workers to brutal conditions for extremely low pay. One report found that workers at an iPhone, iPad, and MacBook factory were making . Another report alleges that an Apple supplier was using in China.
Highest Paid CEOs 2024 (Continued)
17) Thomas Shannon, Bowlero Corp – $67 million
College degree: International Relations, American University
16) Peter Anevski, Progyny – $68 million
College degree: Accounting and Finance, Wayne State University
15) Peter Zaffino, American International Group – $75 million
College degree: Economics, Boston College
14) Eric Yuan, Zoom – $76 million
College degree: Applied Mathematics, Shandong University of Science and Technology
Eric Yuan, one of the highest-paid CEOs in the world, is the CEO and founder of a little video conferencing system that in 2020, in the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic, became a household name and contributed to keeping鈥攁t least in part鈥攖he world turning.
Zoom has a cute origin story. Yuan was inspired to create a video conferencing software when he was a student in university; his girlfriend lived 10 hours away by train, and he came up with the idea as a way to be (virtually) closer to her. Yuan moved to Silicon Valley in 1997, where he joined WebEx, and later, Cisco Systems. In 2011, he pitched the Cisco execs on an early version of Zoom, which he marketed as a smartphone-friendly video conferencing app. Cisco turned him down. So he left to start his own company, Zoom Video Communications.
Yuan became a billionaire in 2019, when Zoom went public. The COVID pandemic was another boon: between 2019 and 2020, Yuan鈥檚 net worth shot up 360%, to an estimated $16.4 billion.
Highest CEO Salary – Highest Paid CEOs 2024 (Continued)
13) Joseph Bae, KKR & Co – $80 million
College degree: Economics, Harvard
12) Allan Thygesen, DocuSign – $85 million
College degree: Economics, University of Copenhagen
Highest CEO Salary – Highest Paid CEOs 2024 (Continued)
11) Aneel Bhursi, Workday – $102.7 million
College degree: Electrical Engineering, Brown University
10) Kiwi Camara, CS Disco – $109 million
College degree: Computer Science, Hawaii Pacific University
Kiwi Camara made $109 million in 2022 as the CEO of CS Disco, a management software for lawyers. He stepped down the following year amidst .
Highest Paid CEOs 2024 (Continued)
9) Bill Ready, Pinterest – $122 million
College degree: Information Science, Louisville
Bill Ready, who in 2022 made $122 million as Pinterest’s chief executive, previously worked at Google, PayPal, Braintree, and McKinsey.
8) Douglas Ingram, Sarepta Therapeutics – $124 million
College degree: Psychology, Arizona State
In 2022, Douglas Ingram made just south of $125 million as Sarepta CEO. Sarepta Therapeutics is a medical research and drug development company that focuses on treating genetic diseases.
Highest CEO Salary – Highest Paid CEOs 2024 (Continued)
7) Michael Rapino, Live Nation Entertainment – $139 million
College degree: Business Administration, Lakehead University
Michael Rapino started his career as a beer rep for Labatt Breweries, promoting bands at local bars. Now he鈥檚 a mega-millionaire CEO whose company is on antitrust grounds.
6) Nikesh Arora, Palo Alto Networks – $151 million
College degree: Electric Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology. Varanasi
Nikesh Arora heads Palo Alto Networks, a behemoth cybersecurity company that serves 85 of the Fortune 100. He holds a bachelor鈥檚 degree in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Varanasi, in addition to a master鈥檚 degree in finance from Boston College and an MBA from Northeastern.
Highest Paid CEOs 2024 (Continued)
5) Barry McCarthy, Peloton – $168 million
College degree: History, Northwestern
Former Spotify and Netflix exec Barry McCarthy served as the CEO of stationary bike company Peloton from 2022 to 2024. McCarthy replaced founder John Foley as the company鈥檚 top dog.
McCarthy鈥檚 tenure wasn鈥檛 exactly glorious. Only two years after becoming CEO, McCarthy stepped down as the company announced it would be to make up for lackluster revenue. And that news came after McCarthy himself implemented an earlier round of cuts that saw 500 Peloton employees lose their jobs. But hey鈥擬cCarthy got paid. As a matter of fact, in 2022, McCarthy was the highest-paid CEO in the US.
4) Stephen Scherr, Hertz – $182 million
College degree: Arts, Princeton
Stephen Scherr served as the CEO of car rental company Hertz from 2022 to 2024, in which time he became one of the highest-paid CEOs in the country. Prior to joining Hertz, Scherr was an investment banker at Goldman Sachs, and served as their CFO from 2018 to 2021.
Scherr holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Princeton University and a law degree from Harvard Law School.
3) Sundar Pichai, Alphabet Inc – $226 million
College degree: Metallurgical Engineering, IIT Kharagpur
Sundar Pichai has been the CEO of Alphabet Inc., the holding company for Google, since 2015. He joined Google in 2004, and on his way up the corporate ladder, he oversaw the development of apps like Chrome, Drive, Gmail, and Google Maps.
Pichai graduated with a degree in metallurgical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur. He also holds degrees from Stanford and the University of Pennsylvania.
2) Stephen Schwarzman, Blackstone Group – $253 million
College degree: Social Sciences, Yale
Stephen Schwarzman isn鈥檛 just one of the highest-paid CEOs. He鈥檚 one of the richest people on the planet. In April 2024, Forbes estimated his net worth to be . Trying to conceptualize numbers like that makes my brain hurt (this does a great job of putting that kind of wealth in perspective). Here鈥檚 how I think about it: the median household income in the US is $68,000. Divide 39 billion by 68,000 and you get a really big number: 573,529. That means that it鈥檇 take 573,529 years鈥攅arning the median household income in the US鈥攖o match the wealth of Stephen Schwarzman.
Lots of interesting things will have happened, geologically and astronomically speaking, in 500,000 or so years. Niagara Falls will have eroded the remaining 32 kilometers to Lake Erie and . New volcanic islands will have formed. And due to the orbit of stars around the Milky Way, the .
Schwarzman heads Blackstone Inc., a massive investment firm that鈥檚 got its moneyed tentacles in everything from politics to dating apps to . Lately, Blackstone has come under (some, not enough) fire for buying up and renting it out for a profit. In 2019, an advisor to the UN accused the company of .
1) Elon Musk, Tesla – $55.8 billion*
College degree: Physics and Economics, University of Pennsylvania
Yes, that鈥檚 billion with a b. Musk stands alone on the list of the highest-paid CEOs. The figure is asterisked because he didn鈥檛 receive the nearly $56 billion (what鈥檚 a couple hundred million here or there?) as his yearly salary. Rather, it was a pay package put in place back in 2018; Tesla shareholders in a vote this past June.
Frankly, there are to be critical of Musk. I won鈥檛 enumerate them all here. Instead, I鈥檒l spell out what I think is the most compelling reason to cultivate a heathy mistrust of the South African billionaire. And that is: he doesn鈥檛 care about you, or the environment鈥攁s much as he鈥檇 like you to believe that. The only thing he cares about is his bottom line.
Highest CEO Salary – Highest Paid CEOs 2024 (Continued)
What鈥檚 my evidence for that claim? Well, back in 2013, Musk floated a to connect LA and San Francisco via what he called a 鈥渉yperloop鈥濃攁 vacuum-sealed tube that he said would zip travelers up and down the coast in just 35 minutes. Of course, Musk鈥檚 plans never materialized. In fact, calling them 鈥減lans鈥 is somewhat misleading: according to his biographer, he never even intended to build the thing in the first place. Rather, he teased the idea because he wanted to .
And here we are in 2024: Californian cities are crippled by traffic, and the state still doesn鈥檛 have a high-speed rail system. Now ask yourself: why would Musk want to kill a public transportation project? After all, public transportation is safe, , and democratic. Sadly, it doesn鈥檛 take a big imaginative effort to figure that one out: effective public transport means less people buying Teslas. And that means less value for ol鈥 Elon and his shareholders.
I鈥檒l leave it there. Musk reigns supreme amongst the world鈥檚 highest-paid CEOs, and鈥攆or better or worse鈥攈e鈥檚 going to be shaping our reality for years to come.
Highest Paid CEOs & Their College Degrees – Additional Resources
