Source: Adweek
Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella was the highest-paid media company executive in 2024. Also ranking high on the list were Apple’s CEO Tim Cook and Netflix’s co-CEOs, Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters.
Publicly available documents reveal that Nadella’s total compensation – including salary, bonuses, stock awards, and other forms of payment – amounted to approximately €72.8 million ($79.1 million). That’s nearly five times the earnings of the average CEO of a company listed on the S&P 500 index.* According to analytics firm Equilar, the median CEO compensation in such companies is around €15 million ($16.4 million).
Apple’s Tim Cook and Netflix’s co-CEOs, Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters, also earned more than €55 million (over $60 million), significantly exceeding the average for executives in similar positions.
Total Cash Compensation of Media Company CEOs
When comparing CEO compensation with the average employee salary, Disney’s CEO Bob Iger topped the list with the largest pay gap.
In 2024, Iger earned 746 times more than the average Disney employee.
Others high on this list include Tim Cook (Apple), Satya Nadella (Microsoft), and David Zaslav (Warner Bros. Discovery).
CEO-to-Employee Pay Ratio in Media Companies
Additional data from Equilar shows that in the past year, the average pay ratio between S&P 500 CEOs and their employees was 197:1.
Equilar’s analysis was based on reports from U.S. public companies, which are required to disclose the annual compensation of their CEOs and compare it to the income of the average employee.
In 2023, Tim Cook was the highest-paid media CEO – earning around €58.2 million ($63.2 million), with a CEO-to-employee pay ratio of 672:1.
* The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index (S&P 500) is a stock market index that tracks the performance of 500 leading publicly traded companies listed on U.S. stock exchanges.
