Elon Musk Dominates List of Highest Paid C.E.O.s

Even among the nation’s best-paid corporate chiefs, Elon Musk stands alone. His compensation last year was a mind-boggling $132.3 billion. That’s not just 2.5 million times what the typical Tesla employee made; it’s 153 times the compensation of the second-highest paid chief executive.

Dylan Field, who heads Figma, an online design platform, was runner-up to Mr. Musk in the rankings. But in terms of wealth created, he was way behind. His pay, $864.4 million, was a mere rounding error for Mr. Musk.

These astonishing figures come from the latest annual survey of the highest-paid chief executives conducted for The New York Times by the research firm Equilar. The study found that seven other chief executives of public companies had paydays last year of at least $100 million, more than ever before.

Median pay for the 100 highest-paid chief executives in publicly traded companies reached $39.4 million — a new peak, and a leap of 35.8 percent in just one year.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/05/business/highest-paid-ceos-elon-musk.html