List of 20 highest paid CEOs in the world, their salary and net worth 2022
Since the CEO position is prestigious, lucrative, and the most powerful office in an organization, every employee aspires to be there someday. Even entrepreneurs and investors dream of becoming the highest paid CEOs in the world because they would be overseeing the most successful business on the planet.
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The highest paid CEOs in the world make a lot of money from the reputable companies they govern. Most have maintained these much-coveted positions for decades because they are the founders. Others rose the ranks to get to the CEO levels, and some changed companies before becoming CEOs where they are now.
Who are the highest paid CEOs in the world in 2022?
Most of the highest-paid CEOs in the world work for companies that are the backbone of new technology and inventions. Since some of these companies have spearheaded historical innovations, this confirms that the best CEOs are naturally brilliant and academic giants. Below are interesting details about the highest paid CEOs in the world.
20. John C. Plant - $39.1 million
Source: Twitter
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- Full name: John C Plant
- Born: 1956
- Age: 66 years (as of 2022)
- Birthplace:
- Nationality:
John Plant is the chairman and CEO at Howmet Aerospace Inc, where his annual compensation is over $39.1 million. He has worked in the automotive industry for many years. Some of the companies he has held leadership positions in include Lucas Varity PLC, Trw Inc, and Arconic Inc.
19. Bob Swan - $66.9 million
Source: Facebook
- Full name: Robert Holmes Swan
- Born: 9th May 1960
- Age: 61 years (as of 2022)
- Birthplace: Syracuse, New York, USA
- Nationality: American
Swan attended Corcoran High School, then a Bachelor's degree in business administration from the University at Buffalo School of Management and his MBA from Binghamton University.
He worked as a CFO at eBay, Electronic Data Systems, TRW Inc. The brilliant businessman moved from General Atlantic to Intel as CFO in October 2016 and became the CEO from January 2019 to 15th February 2021.
Although Swan is no longer a CEO, his record in the history of highest paid CEOs will never be erased. His 2019's total compensation at Intel was over $66.9 million.
18. Lachlan Murdoch - $27.7 million
Source: Getty Images
- Full name: Lachlan Keith Murdoch
- Born: 8th September 1971
- Age: 50 years (as of 2022)
- Birthplace: Wimbledon, London, UK
- Nationality: British
The total annual compensation of Fox Corporation's CEO and executive chairman dropped from $29.2 million (2020) to $27.7 million (2021). Lachlan is also the co-chairman of News Corp, executive chairman of Nova Entertainment, and founder of an Australian investment company called Illyria Pty Ltd.
Lachlan earned a Bachelor's degree in Philosophy from Princeton University. He met his dad in Australia and trained at the Daily Mirror. His dad, Rupert Murdoch, was wealthy.
Lachlan was appointed general manager of Queensland Newspapers at age 22 and became publisher of Australia's first national paper, The Australian, at 23.
17. Bill McDermott - $41.7 million
Source: Getty Images
- Full name: William R. McDermott
- Born: 18th August 1961
- Age: 60 years (as of 2022)
- Birthplace: Flushing, New York, United States
- Nationality: American
Bill McDermott is the CEO of a software company known as ServiceNow. His annual compensation is more than $41.7 million. Before ServiceNow, he was the CEO of the technology company SAP SE.
He bought a Deli Gourmet on Long Island for about $7,000 at age 16 and established his first business. After that, McDermott studied Business Management at Dowling College while running his company to pay his college fees.
He also got an MBA at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management and completed an Executive Development Program at the Wharton School of Business.
16. Miguel Patricio - $43.2 million
Source: Getty Images
- Full name: Miguel Patricio
- Born: 1966/1967
- Age: 54–55 (as of 2022)
- Birthplace: Portugal
- Nationality: Portuguese
Miguel Patricio is also among the highest paid CEOs in 2022. He oversees Kraft Heinz and earns a total compensation of over $43.2 million. Patricio has been the company's CEO since 2019 and a board member since 2021.
He was born in Portugal but moved to Brazil for his business degree at San Paulo Business School. Patricio also held prestigious positions in Philip Morris International, Coca Cola, Johnson & Johnson, and Anheuser-Busch InBev.
15. Shantanu Narayan - $45.9 million
Source: Getty Images
- Full name: Shantanu Narayen
- Born: 26th May 1963
- Age: 58 years (as of 2022)
- Birthplace: Hyderabad, India
- Nationality: Indian
Shantanu has been the CEO of Adobe Inc. since December 2007 and its president and chief operating officer since 2005. He makes a total annual compensation of over $45.9 million per annum. The company's yearly revenue is about $11.2 billion.
Narayen grew up in Hyderabad, India, in a Telugu-speaking family. His mum taught American literature, while his father ran a plastics company. They sent him to Hyderabad Public School.
Shantanu earned a Bachelor's degree in electronics and communications engineering from Hyderabad= based University College of Engineering in Osmania University. He then relocated to the US for an MBA at the University of California Berkeley.
Narayen's first huge job was at Apple. He later moved to Silicon Graphics as the director of Desktop and Collaboration Products before landing the position of Senior Vice-President of World Wide Products Research at Adobe in 1998.
14. Satya Nadella - $49.8 million
Source: Getty Images
- Full name: Satya Narayana Nadella
- Born: 19th August 1967
- Age: 54 years (as of 2022)
- Birthplace: Hyderabad, India
- Nationality: Indian-American
Nadella is Microsoft's executive chairman and CEO. He succeeded Steve Ballmer (former CEO) in 2014 and John W. Thompson (former chairman) in 2021. His annual compensation is more than $49.8 million.
Satya was born in India, attended Hyderabad Public School in Begumpet, and earned a Bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Manipal Institute of Technology. He moved to the US for an MS in computer science at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and also pursued an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
Nadella's career began at Sun Microsystems before joining Microsoft in 1992 to work in cloud computing. He also served as the senior vice president of research & development for the online services division and made significant leaps in the company to become the CEO.
13. Lisa T. Su - $58.5 million
Source: Facebook
- Full name: Lisa T. Su
- Born: 7th November 1969
- Age: 52 years (as of 2022)
- Birthplace: Tainan City, Taiwan
- Nationality: Taiwanese-American
Lisa's annual compensation is over $58.5 million. She is the president, CEO, and chair of Advanced Micro Devices and the first female to be ranked among the highest paid CEOs in the world.
Lisa was born in a Taiwanese Hokkien speaking family and migrated to the US at the age of 3 with her parents, Su Chun-hwai and Sandy Lo. They encouraged Lisa and her brother to study math and science.
She joined MIT and studied electrical engineering, then earned her Master's and PhD. Lisa has held engineering and management positions at Texas Instruments, IBM, and Freescale Semiconductor.
12. Chad Richison - $220.0 million
Source: Twitter
- Full name: Chad Richison
- Born: 1972
- Age: 50 years (as of 2022)
- Birthplace: Oklahoma, USA
- Nationality: American
Richison is the founder, president and CEO of Paycom. He hauled hay for neighbouring farmers at age 11 and bought a Chevy Viking truck at age 17. His high school friends helped him build a small business that hauled 1,200 bales a day.
Richison attended Tuttle High School. He joined the University of Central Oklahoma in 1989 to study a Bachelor's degree in mass communications and graduated in 1993.
Richison worked for ADP and Denver in the payroll industry after graduation. During that time, he noticed many companies complaining about the payroll management systems' inefficiencies, like time-consuming manual entries made by the HR departments.
Richison focused on resolving this issue by creating Paycom. He sold his house in Denver, applied for a Small Business Administration loan and used his 401k savings to start the company.
Richison launched Paycom in 1998, and the company pays him over $220 million per year. He has been America's highest paid CEO on Forbes severally.
11. Griffin Myers - $221.3 million
Source: Twitter
- Full name: Griffin Myers
- Born: 1984
- Age: 38 years (as of 2022)
- Birthplace: USA
- Nationality: American
Griffin Myers is a co-founder and Chief Medical Officer of Provider Engagement at Oak Street Health. He attended Battle Ground Academy in Franklin, Tennessee, USA. Myers earned a BS in chemistry from Davidson College and an MD from the University of Chicago - Pritzker School of Medicine.
Griffin also has an MBA in Economics, Finance, and Accounting from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and did his residency at Harvard University. The board-certified physician is responsible for the excellence of healthcare delivery at Oak Street Health.
10. David Zaslav - $246 million
Source: Getty Images
- Full name: David Zaslav
- Born: 15th January 1960
- Age: 62 years (as of 2022)
- Birthplace: Brooklyn, New York, USA
- Nationality: American
David Zaslav’s 2021 payment soared to $246 million (from $37.7 million in 2020 and $45.8 million in 2019) ahead of the Warner Media merger this year. Discovery Inc. disclosed the CEO's compensation and other senior executives in a regulatory filing.
David has been Discovery's CEO since January 2007. He was born in New York and attended Boston University School of Law. He worked as an attorney for a short period before joining NBC Universal for 20 years as Cable and Domestic Television's president.
9. Tim Cook - $265 million
Source: Getty Images
- Full name: Timothy Donald Cook
- Born: 1st November 1960
- Age: 61 years (as of 2022)
- Birthplace: Mobile, Alabama, USA
- Nationality: American
Cook was a chief operating officer at Apple Inc. before becoming its CEO in 2011. Since he served under the company's co-founder Steve Jobs, Cook was deemed the right person to take over the CEO position even before Steve died in October 2011.
While Steve Jobs' innovative products like the iMac, iPod, and iPhone received global attention, Cook streamlined the company's operations and supply chain to make it successful.
Before joining Apple, Tim was Compaq's vice president of corporate materials. He was responsible for procuring and managing all of Compaq's product inventory.
Cook's mum, Geraldine, was a pharmacy employee, while his dad, Donald, was a shipyard worker. He grew up in Robertsdale and attended Robertsdale High School.
Cook earned a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering from Auburn University (1982) and got a Master's in Business Administration from Duke University's Fuqua School of Business (1988). Apple Inc. pays him over $265 million per annum.
8. Sundar Pichai - $280.6 million
Source: Getty Images
- Full name: Pichai Sundararajan
- Born: 10th June 1972
- Age: 49 years (as of 2022)
- Birthplace: Madurai, India
- Nationality: Indian
Sundar Pichai's annual compensation as the CEO of Alphabet and Google is $280.6 million. He got the position in October 2015 and became a member of the Board of Directors in July 2017. In addition, the CEO was granted a $240 million stock package in 2019, which will vest in 2023.
Sundar has a Metallurgical Engineering degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, an M.S in materials science and engineering from Stanford University, and an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania - Wharton School. He started at Google in 2004 as a material engineer, and some of his projects at Google include Chrome, Gmail, Google Maps, and Android.
7. Geoffrey Price - $356.2 million
Source: Twitter
- Full name: Geoffrey Price
- Born: 1982
- Age: 40 years (as of 2022)
- Birthplace: USA
- Nationality: American
Geoffrey Price has been Oak Street Health's CEO and a board member since 2012. Before co-founding this company, he was Boston Consulting Group's consultant (2010-2012) and project leader (2012- 2013). He gets over $356.2 million annually at Oak Street Health.
Price is 40 years old and holds a Bachelor of Science in Engineering from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
6. Alex Karp - $369.6 million
Source: Getty Images
- Full name: Alexander Caedmon Karp
- Born: 2nd October 1967
- Age: 54 years (as of 2022)
- Birthplace: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
- Nationality: American
Karp is the co-founder and CEO of a software firm called Palantir Technologies. He met fellow co-founder, billionaire Peter Thiel (a Facebook investor) while at Stanford Law School.
Karp created Caedmon Group, a London-based money management firm, before establishing Palantir in 2004. He occasionally teaches meditation classes at the company. Karp's annual compensation at Palantir is over $369.6 million.
The billionaire struggled with dyslexia growing up in Philadelphia. His Jewish dad and an African-American mum sent him to Central High School. He later earned a Bachelor's degree from Haverford College in (Haverford, Pennsylvania (1989), a JD degree from Stanford University (1992), and a Dr Phil. degree in neoclassical social theory from Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany (2002).
5. Eric Wu - $388.7 million
Source: Facebook
- Full name: Eric Wu
- Born: 1982/1983
- Age: 39 or 40 years (when 2022 ends)
- Birthplace: Unknown
- Nationality: Unknown
Eric Wu is the Co-founder and CEO of Opendoor online real estate company. He obtained a Bachelor of Science in Economics from the University of Arizona.
After graduating, he combined his coding and real estate passions to establish his first real estate tech start-up. In 2008, Wu co-founded RentAdvisor.com for people to post reviews of neighbourhoods and landlords.
He sold RentAdvisor to Apartment List in 2013 after creating a location data analytics company called Movity.com. The company analyzed the neighbourhood's crime statistics, commute times, real estate prices, and other data for home buyers.
Wu sold Movity.com to Trulia in 2011 and co-founded Opendoor with Keith Rabois in 2014. Since the entrepreneur was 36 years in 2019, he will be 39 or 40 years old when 2022 ends. Wu receives annual compensation of over $388.7 million from Opendoor.
4. Douglas Hirsch - $497.8 million
Source: Twitter
- Full name: Douglas Joseph Hirsch
- Born: January 1970
- Age: 52 years (as of 2022)
- Birthplace: USA
- Nationality: American
The GoodRx co-founder, co-CEO, and director previously held senior positions at Facebook and Yahoo! Hirsch holds a BA in Political Science from Tufts University. He also served as DailyStrength's CEO, a healthcare-focused social network centred on support groups, from March 2005 to November 2008. Douglas lives in West Palm Beach in Florida and earns more than $497.8 million annual compensation from GoodRx.
3. Trevor Bezdek - $497.8 million
Source: Getty Images
- Full name: Trevor Bezdek
- Born: 1979
- Age: 43 years (as of 2022)
- Birthplace: USA
- Nationality: American
Trevor Bezdek, Griffin Myers, and Doug Hirsch are GoodRx's co-founders. Bezdek is also the company's secretary and director. The digital telemedicine platform connects the public to stores with prescriptions they need at lower prices.
Bezdek was born to American parents in the US and raised alongside his siblings. He attended local schools and graduated from Stanford University before starting his career. GoodRx Company pays Trevor over $497.8 million per annum.
2. Mike Pykosz - $568.4 million
Source: Facebook
- Full name: Michael T. Pykosz
- Born: 1983
- Age: 39 years (when 2022 ends)
- Birthplace: USA
- Nationality: American
Mike Pykosz is a co-founder and CEO of Oak Street Health, a network of primary care centres for adults on Medicare. He has a BS in Biochemistry from the University of Notre Dame and a JD degree from Harvard Law School.
Pykosz was a Payers and Providers practice member at The Boston Consulting Group. He and two BCG colleagues created Oak Street Health in 2013 after noticing low-income seniors going to the emergency room instead of their primary care physicians. As a result, Medicare managed-care plans encountered huge hospital bills.
Oak Street Health saved hospitals enough money to reinvest in primary care by reducing emergency room usage and hospitalizations. In addition, they offered doctors' appointments, free transport, and a care team for each physician to manage chronic illnesses.
Oak Street Health now has over 20 clinics and more than 750 employees. It serves over 28,000 patients in 6 markets across 3 states. Mike Pykosz's total annual compensation is $568.4 million.
1. Elon Musk - $6.7 billion
Source: Getty Images
- Full name: Elon Reeve Musk FRS
- Born: 28th June 1971
- Age: 50 years (when 2022 ends)
- Birthplace: Pretoria, South Africa
- Nationality: American, Canadian, South African
Elon Musk is the highest paid CEO in the world in 2022. The SpaceX owner and Tesla CEO gets over $6.7 billion in annual compensation. SpaceX creates rockets while Tesla makes electric cars.
He also co-founded the electronic payment firm PayPal. Musk was born to a Canadian mum and a White South African dad. He grew up in Pretoria, South Africa, and briefly attended the University of Pretoria before relocating to Canada at age 17.
Musk graduated from Queen's University and earned a Bachelor's degree in Economics and Physics from the University of Pennsylvania two years late. He moved to California in 1995 to study at Stanford University but decided to pursue a business career.
What are the top 10 CEO salaries?
These are the top 10 highest paid CEOs in the world:
- Elon Musk (Tesla) - $6.65 billion
- Mike Pykosz (co-CEO of Oak Street Health) - $568 million
- Trevor Bezdek (co-CEO of GoodRx Holdings) - $497 million (GoodRx Holdings)
- Douglas Hirsch (co-CEO of GoodRx Holdings) - $497 million (GoodRx Holdings)
- Eric Wu (Opendoor Technologies) - $388 million
- Alex Karp (Palantir Technologies) - $369 million
- Geoffrey Price (co-CEO of Oak Street Health) - $356.2 million
- Tim Cook (Apple) - $265 million
- Griffin Myers (co-CEO of Oak Street Health) - $221.3 million
- Chad Richison (Paycom Software) - $220 million
Highest paid CEOs in America in 2022
Here are America's highest paid CEO:
- Elon Musk (Tesla)
- Tim Cook (Apple)
- Alex Karp (Palantir Technologies)
- Eric Wu (Opendoor Technologies)
- Trevor Bezdek (co-CEO of GoodRx Holdings)
- Mike Pykosz (co-CEO of Oak Street Health)
- Douglas Hirsch (co-CEO of GoodRx Holdings)
- Griffin Myers (co-CEO of Oak Street Health)
- Geoffrey Price (co-CEO of Oak Street Health)
- Chad Richison (Paycom Software)
How much more do American CEOs make than their highest paid employee?
The 351:1 ratio of a CEO's salary to an average worker's pay means CEOs of the top 350 firms in the US made an average of $24.2 million, which is 351 times more than a typical worker.
Who are the highest paid CEOs in Africa?
The the highest paid CEOs in Africa are:
- Graham Mackay (SABMiller) - $1,401,073
- Whitey Basson (Shoprite) - $3,809,343
- David Constable (Sasol) - $868,777
- Brian Joffe (Bidvest) - $1,442,617
- Billiton Marius Kloppers (BHP) - $1,651,278
Which charities have the highest paid CEOs?
Here are some of the highest paid nonprofit CEOs:
- Viviane Tabar (Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center) - $4,869,769 in 2020
- Robert W. Stone (City of Hope & Affiliates) - $3,827,671 in 2020
- Craig Ono (Shriners Hospitals for Children) - $$2,692,183 in 2020
- Michael Salem (National Jewish Health) - $2,428,797 in 2020
- Laurie H. Glimcher (Dana-Farber Cancer Institute) - $2,049,428 in 2020
- James R. Downing (St. Jude Children's Research Hospital) - $1,904,885 in 2020
- Jack Mahler (Cystic Fibrosis Foundation) - $1,698,720 in 2020
- Wayne R. LaPierre (National Rifle Association (NRA)) - $1,665,267 in 2020
- Cristian Samper (Wildlife Conservation Society) - $1,367,655 in 2020
- Harry Johns (Alzheimer's Association) - $1,358,498 in 2020
Who is the highest paid CEO in the world?
Musk is the world's highest paid CEO, according to a Forbes report. He still holds the same position in 2022, with a $6.65 million total annual compensation.
After analyzing the academic qualifications and work experience of these highest-paid CEOs in the world, you will understand why they receive enormous salaries. They have been working hard for years to climb up the corporate ladders.
READ ALSO: 10 most valuable luxury brands in the world today
Briefly.co.za also posted the 10 most valuable luxury brands worldwide. If you want to dress like the highest-paid CEOs globally, these are the brands you should buy.
Wearing expensive attires and accompaniments will boost your confidence and make you work harder to afford more luxuries.
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