It might sound uncanny, but it is true: CEOs and former CEOs from major tech companies have or had salaries of just $1. Yes, Elon Musk (Tesla), Jeremy Stoppelman (Yelp), Larry Ellison (Oracle), Meg Whitman (HP), and Steve Jobs (Apple) earn or earned paychecks of just one dollar a month. Don’t believe us? Check out some of these stories:
These are all part of a meaningful number of high-profile executives on some of America’s top companies that have reduced their cash salaries to a single dollar. Or, better yet, to about 93 cents (after taxes). Here’s why.
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Why do top execs of tech companies earn $1 salaries?
If you’re C-level at a listed company, the symbolic paycheck reduction might be well-seen by shareholders and investors, while also serving as an example for other employees further down the org chart. This positioning has been strategic not only in crisis scenarios but also during not-so-notorious rough patches.
The first round of $1 executives in the tech sector came about the dot-com crash of the early 2000s, with James Barksdale (Netscape), John Chambers (Cisco), Larry Ellison (Oracle), and Tom Siebel (Siebel Systems) following Steve Jobs (Apple)’s cue. Mid-decade, it had become such a trend that it became more of a status symbol than an altruistic positioning, said the Los Angeles Times.
However, it would be naive to believe that these salary cuts did, indeed, impact purchasing power. Truth is, most $1 CEO Club members earn their income from other sources not directly linked to cash, such as stock options and bonuses. Thus, their net worth is far larger than the payroll would have it.
Why is the $1 CEO Club a thing?
At a personal level, this alternative form of compensation is far more beneficial than the salary they do sacrifice. Or, as put by The Hustle: “CEOs who take a $1 salary can afford to do so because they tend to be extraordinarily wealthy: 30% are on the Forbes 400 list of richest Americans, and the majority of them retain a much higher equity stake in their company than non-$1 salary CEOs.”
In fact, the article points out that for every $610k in salary but gains $2m in other “not-so-visible forms of equity-based compensation”. Another interesting find is that such arrangements have a tenure of about three years – which is already enough to make several million. At these figures, one can verify these are not startup CEOs.
In case you’re curious: where did the $1 CEO salary come from?
During World War II, everyone was expected to keep the American economy mobilize, including entrepreneurs and business leaders. Philip Reed (General Electric) and William S. Knudsen (General Motors) offered free services for the government, but since volunteering was forbidden, they settled for $1 rates instead, becoming known as the dollar-a-year men. Regardless of the motivation, the tradition carries on.
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It might sound uncanny, but it is true: CEOs and former CEOs from major tech companies have or had salaries of just $1. Yes, Elon Musk (Tesla), Jeremy Stoppelman (Yelp), Larry Ellison (Oracle), Meg Whitman (HP), and Steve Jobs (Apple) earn or earned paychecks of just one dollar a month. Don't believe us?
Zuckerberg has been part of the "dollar salary club" since 2013, alongside figures like Larry Page, Larry Ellison, and the late Steve Jobs. This club signifies individuals who receive a nominal $1 salary.
The concept of a one-dollar salary arises when top chief executives worldwide choose to receive only $1 as compensation from their companies. Despite working without direct financial rewards, these CEOs adhere to legal requirements necessitating a minimal salary.
A number of top executives in large businesses and governments have worked for a one-dollar salary. One-dollar salaries are used in situations where an executive wishes to work without direct compensation, but for legal reasons must receive a payment above zero, so as to distinguish them from a volunteer.
$1 hourly is how much per year? If you make $1 per hour, your Yearly salary would be $2,080. This result is obtained by multiplying your base salary by the amount of hours, week, and months you work in a year, assuming you work 40 hours a week.
Zuckerberg isn't the only CEO with the $1 salary: Tesla's Elon Musk, Yelp chief Jeremy Stoppelman and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin have also made just $1 per year at their respective companies.
How much does a 1 Figure make? As of Jul 12, 2024, the average annual pay for a 1 Figure in the United States is $167,480 a year. Just in case you need a simple salary calculator, that works out to be approximately $80.52 an hour. This is the equivalent of $3,220/week or $13,956/month.
How Elon Musk's $44.9B Tesla pay package compares to other top U.S. CEO plans. Even though the median U.S. CEO pay package last year was nearly 200 times more than a worker in the middle of their company pay scales, Elon Musk's record-setting Tesla compensation dwarfs them by comparison.
Zuckerberg's official salary remains a symbolic $1, according to Meta's 2023 SEC filing. Yes, you read it right. His salary is $1 and follows a trend Zuckerberg established in 2013. However, the filing reveals a different story when it comes to total compensation.
Taking a $1 salary was a way of showing how much he cared about the company he'd co-founded two decades earlier in his parents' garage. He preferred to take the million dollars he could have earned as salary and put it back into the company, investing in its future.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the national average salary in 2021 was $58,260. Although wages above the average could be seen as a good salary, there are no hard and fast rules regarding how to determine a good salary since there are many factors involved.
Steve Jobs Was Worth Billions But Said Money 'Wasn't That Important' – Famously Took $1 A Year Salary From Apple From 1997 Until 2011. In this article: AAPL.
By company size, base, bonus, and total cash compensation all rise as revenue does, with total median cash compensation coming in at $1,639,000 at companies with revenue above $1 billion. By industry, CEOs at financial services firms are paid the most: $1,013,000 in median total cash compensation.
In the past 10 years, CEO pay at S&P 500 companies increased by more than $5 million to an average of $16.7 million in 2022. Meanwhile, the average U.S. worker saw a wage increase of $15,460 over the past decade, earning on average just $61,900 in 2022. Blackstone Inc. Alphabet Inc.
On April 13, 2015, with reporters from The New York Times and NBC News in attendance, Price told Gravity Payments staff that he was raising the company's minimum salary to $70,000 and reducing his own compensation from $1.1 million to $70,000. The story quickly went viral.
A division of his earnings of $3.6203 by the number of seconds in a year brings up the mighty number: $114.80. This is what Musk makes every second. This is equal to $6,887 per minute, $413,220 per hour, $9,917,280 per day, and $69,420,960 per week.
Tesla hasn't paid Musk a base salary since 2019, according to the company's regulatory filings. Instead, his compensation has been paid through "performance awards" of stock options that are based on Tesla hitting certain milestones, such as vehicle production or increasing the company's market value.
Tesla shareholders recently approved CEO Elon Musk's $56 billion remuneration package for the second time at a crucial annual shareholder meeting, following a prior invalidation by a Delaware court earlier this year.
Introduction: My name is Dr. Pierre Goyette, I am a enchanting, powerful, jolly, rich, graceful, colorful, zany person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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