Top CEO ‘s Salary From Highest Earning Elon Musk to Lowest Earning Warren Buffett…
Starting from Elon Musk, Tim Cook to Mark Zuckerberg, the Chief Executive Officers of a company / organization are the ones who lead the firm in the market by maximizing revenue and growth, parallelly meeting the goals and objectives of the company, that literally means, Board of Directors’ (BoD) decisions.
Being in such a responsible role, pays as much as in their compensation CEOs get. After BoDs, CEOs are the highest paid in a firm and the ratio of a CEO’s salary to an average employee’s salary is in 100s. For example, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai gets compensation that’s 800 times more than a Google engineer is paid annually.
Here is how much World’s top 10 companies’ CEO earn annually..
Tim Cook – Apple
The master-mind behind $2.4 trillion Apple, Tim Cook took home $74.6 million in 2024. Tim’s base salary is $3 million, while his compensation in stocks, and other incentives add up to $71.6 million in 2024. Tim Cook owns 707,410 shares of Apple, which has a worth of $122.81 million as of 2025. Tim Cook’s total net worth is estimated to be $2.4 billion (as of May 2025).
Jensen Huang – Nvidia
NVIDIA Corporation, a leading designer of graphics processing units (GPUs) and AI chips, is helmed by its co-founder, President, and CEO, Jensen Huang. According to the company’s proxy statement filed in May 2024, Jensen Huang’s total compensation for fiscal year 2024 was reported to be approximately $34.2 million. Similar to many CEOs in the tech industry, a significant portion of his compensation is in the form of stock awards and performance-based incentives, reflecting the company’s performance and shareholder value. His base salary is a smaller component of this overall package.
As of June 15, 2025, Jensen Huang’s net worth is estimated to be around $117 billion. This substantial net worth is largely attributed to his significant ownership in NVIDIA, a company that has experienced tremendous growth, particularly in the AI sector.
Amin H. Nasser – Saudi Aramco
65-year-old Amin H. Nasser is the Chief Executive Officer of Saudi Aramco, world’s leading integrated energy and chemicals enterprise, and the largest provider of crude oil. Saudi Aramco, a $2 trillion company, also has Amin H. Nasser as one of its BoD. Amin H. Nasser received $6.2 million as salary in 2024 from Saudi Aramco and owns 1.038 million shares in the company, which is of worth $8.78 million (32.9 million SAR) as of June 2025. Amin H. Nasser’s relatives own 83,506 shares of Saudi Aramco which has a worth of $559,838 (as of June 15, 2025). Amin H. Nasser’s net worth is estimated to be $23 billion.
Satya Nadella – Microsoft
Indian-origin Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft is responsible for directing the company in the profitable road since 2014. With Satya Nadella on board, Microsoft had invested and acquired several companies including LinkedIn, GitHub and more. One of the notable investments by Microsoft in OpenAI had let to the birth of ChatGPT, which now supports Microsoft’s Bing.
Satya Nadella received a salary of $79.1 Million in 2024. Satya Nadella has a net worth of $1.4 billion
Sundar Pichai – Alphabet
One of the most acclaimed, Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Alphabet & Google, had widened the firm in all aspects from technology to research to AI. Alphabet & Google had multi-folded its business and revenue under Sundar’s leadership. For his works & contribution to the firm, Indian-born CEO Sundar Pichai made $226 million in 2022, which is linked to his performance-based incentives. His base salary was $2 million and the remaining $224 million are incentives. In 2024, Sundar Pichai took home $10.73 million (₹90 Crores) as salary. Sundar Pichai’s net worth is over $1.3 billion as of January 2025.
Andy Jassy – Amazon
The world’s largest e-commerce platform Amazon’s CEO Andy Jassy first joined Amazon as a marketing manager in 1997 and after 24 years in the company, was elected as CEO on July 5, 2021. Andy Jassy had already been served as CEO of Amazon’s Web Services (AWS) since 2003.
With all his experience and profound expertise, Andy Jassy made $40.1 Million as total annual compensation in the year 2024. With base salary $365,000, Andy receives comparatively less when compared to other CEOs, but not as less as Warren Buffett. Andy Jassy’s net worth is expected to be $500 million as of January 2025.
Elon Musk – Tesla
Here comes the World’s Richest person, the CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, Twitter, who is also the co-founder of SpaceX, OpenAI, Neuralink and Boring. Elon Musk is the richest paid CEO in the world with Tesla alone and the numbers are whoppingly shocking. Elon Musk didn’t receive any salary from Tesla in 2024. However, a report says that Elon Musk had unlocked stock benefits and incentives worth $50 billion for ten years of his phenomenal contribution to Tesla in 2018. Elon Musk is the largest shareholder of Tesla, with over 410 million shares of Tesla.
Elon Musk had twelve-folded Tesla’s worth within a shorter span, that let him to receive these benefits, ultimately making him the richest man in the world. Elon Musk has a net worth of $381 billion as of May 2025.
Warren Buffett – Berkshire Hathaway
Warren Buffett, the CEO and founder of Berkshire Hathaway is an investor, American business magnate and a philanthropist. Currently seated also as the chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett multiplied his wealth exponentially with strictly adhering to time-tested value investing over years. His long-term investments and manifesting the powers of stock-market made him one of the top ten richest persons in the world.
But the most exciting part is that, Warren is extremely frugal, that he still lives in the house he bought in the 1958. Such a person, as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, receives only $100,000 as annual salary with no stock or other incentives. The man is unbelievable!. Warren Buffett has a total net worth of $152.1 billion as of 15 June, 2025.
Mark Zuckerberg – Meta Platforms
Meta, previously known as Facebook, was co-founded by Mark Zuckerberg and had seated him as the CEO since its existence. Mark Zuckerberg earns $27.22 million in 2024 including all benefits, taking $1 as base salary. Generally, CEOs take less salary, but more incentives and stock benefits for additional reasons explained at the bottom of the page. As of June 15, 2025, Mark Zuckerberg has a net worth of $216 billion.
C.C.Wei – TSMC
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) is the world’s most valuable semiconductor company, and Taiwan’s largest company. With Apple, Nvidia and AMD as its biggest customers, TSMC is valued at $419 billion.
C.C.Wei joined TSMC in 1998 and has been the CEO of the company since November 2013. C.C.Wei receives $32 million as total compensation annually from TSMC, with 93.7% as stock and other benefits, a report says.
Hock E. Tan – Broadcom
Broadcom Inc., a global infrastructure technology company, is led by its President and CEO, Hock E. Tan. He has served in this role since March 2006, guiding the company through significant growth and strategic acquisitions.
As of the company’s proxy statement filed in January 2024, Hock Tan’s total compensation for fiscal year 2023 was reported to be $162 million. This compensation package is heavily weighted towards stock awards, which are performance-based and tied to the company’s long-term success. His base salary is $1.2 million, with incentives and stock benefits forming the bulk of his earnings, aligning with the common practice for CEOs.
As of June 15, 2025, Hock E. Tan’s net worth is estimated to be around $1 billion. This figure fluctuates based on the value of his stock holdings in Broadcom.
| Name of the CEO | Company | Total Compensation (Salary) in 2024 | Net worth (as of 2025) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tim Cook | Apple | $74.6 million | $2.4 billion |
| Jensen Huang | Nvidia | $34.2 million | $117 billion |
| Amin H. Nasser | Saudi Aramco | $6.2 million | $23 billion |
| Satya Nadella | Microsoft | $79.1 million | $1.4 billion |
| Sundar Pichai | Alphabet & Google | $10.73 million | $1.3 billion |
| Andy Jassy | Amazon | $40.1 million | $500 million |
| Elon Musk | Tesla | $5 billion* | $381 billion |
| Warren Buffett | Berkshire Hathaway | $100,000 | $152.1 billion |
| Mark Zuckerberg | Meta Platforms | $27.22 million | $216 billion |
| C.C. Wei | TSMC | $32 million | Not explicitly known |
| Hock E. Tan | Broadcom | $162 million | $1 billion |
(Only the CEOs of Top 10 Companies of 2025 are taken into consideration in this article).
*(The $50 billion stock benefits and incentives of Elon Musk for a ten-year period is tabulated as an average for each year as $5 billion. However, Elon Musk’s stock compensations are wavery. For example, from May 2020 to November 2022, Musk received $31.7 billion, with earnings as much as $10 billion in Q1 of 2021 alone, according to reports.)
Why the CEOs’ salaries are much lesser than their stock & other benefits?
If you had read the article, the salaries of CEOs are comparatively less to their stock and other benefits. This isn’t something that’s bounded by company’s rules and regulations, but a mere fact that salaries are tax-inefficient. CEOs prefer to take up less salaries and more as incentives and compensations, as it saves the tax predominantly.
Who is the lowest paid CEO of the top ten companies in the World?
Warren Buffett. There isn’t any particular reason for this, other than Warren Buffett is frugal to the core. He lives in the same house that he bought in 1958.
Who is the highest paid CEO of the top ten companies in the world?
Elon Musk is the highest paid CEO. Elon Musk had cleared the targets assigned to him (for CEO) within the time period, for which he received $50 billion in compensation for achieving the targets.
Normally, CEOs have targets assigned to them by the firm’s BoDs, and only by meeting them, they will be paid in heavy in terms of incentives and other benefits. And that’s how most of the CEOs including Sundar Pichai, Tim Cook, pocket a considerable amount of money into their accounts.
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