Latest news with #US1.1
The Age
10-06-2025
- Business
- The Age
This man made $10.5 billion last year from keeping a close eye on Americans
Karp was in second place in last year's report with nearly $US1.1 billion in gains, trailing Elon Musk, the Tesla CEO, who gained $US1.4 billion. Musk's name is absent from the top-paid lists this year, but he has been fighting in the courts to retain a past, gargantuan pay package that a judge in Delaware has voided twice. The Tesla shares in that contested pay package were worth more than $US98 billion at the end of May, according to Courtney Yu, director of research at Equilar. Musk funnelled $US250 million into President Donald Trump's campaign efforts and was behind the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. Facing declining sales at Tesla, he has left the White House for renewed work at his companies, which also include SpaceX, a rocket company and military contractor; X, a social media platform; and xAI, an artificial intelligence company. Classic compensation There's another important way to look at executive compensation: the estimated value of a pay package when it was originally granted. This annual snapshot must also be disclosed by corporations, thanks to government requirements that were tightened under Dodd-Frank. This more traditional approach, which the Times has covered regularly with the help of Equilar since 2012, tends to produce smaller figures for CEO compensation than the 'compensation actually paid' approach. But the numbers are still enormous, compared with the earnings of most working people. It, too, is being reevaluated by the Trump administration. The biggest payday in corporate America last year, using this traditional measure of executive compensation, went to Peter Gassner of Veeva Systems, a cloud-computing company focused on the life sciences, with a total compensation of $US172.4 million, nearly all from stock options and awards. The median employee at the company earned $US137,866. It would take a worker at Veeva Systems 1251 years to earn what Gassner did in 2024. Motivating executives is one thing. Rewarding them like absolute monarchs is another. In a statement, Veeva said Gassner's compensation reflected a stock option grant that depended on the company's share performance and 'is intended as Mr. Gassner's only equity compensation through 2030.' The company said his $US475,000 salary is 'one of the lowest' for CEOs at publicly traded companies. Right behind Gassner on the top-pay list was Patrick W. Smith, aka Rick Smith, who was a founder of Axon Enterprise. It was previously called TASER International and was named for what is still Axon's best-known product: Tasers. The company says its product line also includes 'body cameras, in-car cameras, cloud-hosted digital evidence management solutions, productivity software and real-time operations capabilities.' Loading Smith's total compensation in 2024, using traditional accounting, was $US164.5 million. In a statement, the company said that number reflected 'a long-term, performance-based equity award,' which he would receive only 'over seven years, contingent on Axon meeting ambitious performance goals.' The median Axon employee was paid $US205,322 in 2024, handsome wages compared with salaries at most companies. Even so, because Smith's compensation package was so big, it would take an Axon employee 801 years to earn Smith's pay for just one year. And, using the compensation-actually-paid metric, he earned vastly more: $US385 million in 2024. Gassner at Veeva Systems raked in $US284 million using that measure. The big picture Corporate compensation filings are tedious reading, but they are a trove of information. That may be why they have never been uniformly popular in corner offices and why the Trump administration is beginning a process that could lead to the curtailment or demise of some of these disclosure requirements. In my view, that would be a shame. I would hate to lose access to any of the details being revealed by public corporations. Consider some of the highlights from this year's disclosures, compiled by Equilar. All told, for the 100 highest-paid CEOs of publicly traded companies in 2024, the median CEO compensation, much of it from stock options, was $US37 million, using the traditional accounting metric. That is a big number. Comparing it with what corporate employees make is revealing. The median worker at these companies was paid $US110,125, which is an astonishingly big pay gap. It would take the median employee — the one right in the middle of the income distribution — 357 years to earn what the median CEO earned in just one year. And using comparable, historical data that excludes the compensation at private equity firms, the pay ratio at publicly traded companies is almost 350-to-1, or, simply, 350, which is more than ever before. As I've pointed out before, pay disparities of this magnitude reflect levels of income inequality that were considered repugnant 50 years ago. The American social structure was flatter and CEO-to-worker pay ratios were lower then. Motivating executives is one thing. Rewarding them like absolute monarchs is another. Through the 1970s, one study found, the pay ratio for big companies was less than 20. In the 1980s, Peter F. Drucker, the economist and Wall Street Journal columnist, said it felt 'about right' when CEOs received 10 to 12 times what workers earned. Loading Yes, it's better to be the boss. Anybody in the workforce already knows this without seeing any of these details. But the details matter. Happily, for investors and for rank-and-file workers, we now have considerable information on exactly how well CEOs are paid — and how much more money they receive than everybody else. The Securities and Exchange Commission will convene later this month for a formal discussion about whether to change the rules about what companies need to reveal about CEO pay. Many companies would like less public disclosure. But after 15 years of looking at this issue, I think we need much more.
Sydney Morning Herald
09-06-2025
- Business
- Sydney Morning Herald
The Wall Street CEO who made $10.5 billion last year
Karp was in second place in last year's report with nearly $US1.1 billion in gains, trailing Elon Musk, the Tesla CEO, who gained $US1.4 billion. Musk's name is absent from the top-paid lists this year, but he has been fighting in the courts to retain a past, gargantuan pay package that a judge in Delaware has voided twice. The Tesla shares in that contested pay package were worth more than $US98 billion at the end of May, according to Courtney Yu, director of research at Equilar. Musk funnelled $US250 million into President Donald Trump's campaign efforts and was behind the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. Facing declining sales at Tesla, he has left the White House for renewed work at his companies, which also include SpaceX, a rocket company and military contractor; X, a social media platform; and xAI, an artificial intelligence company. Classic compensation There's another important way to look at executive compensation: the estimated value of a pay package when it was originally granted. This annual snapshot must also be disclosed by corporations, thanks to government requirements that were tightened under Dodd-Frank. This more traditional approach, which the Times has covered regularly with the help of Equilar since 2012, tends to produce smaller figures for CEO compensation than the 'compensation actually paid' approach. But the numbers are still enormous, compared with the earnings of most working people. It, too, is being reevaluated by the Trump administration. The biggest payday in corporate America last year, using this traditional measure of executive compensation, went to Peter Gassner of Veeva Systems, a cloud-computing company focused on the life sciences, with a total compensation of $US172.4 million, nearly all from stock options and awards. The median employee at the company earned $US137,866. It would take a worker at Veeva Systems 1251 years to earn what Gassner did in 2024. Motivating executives is one thing. Rewarding them like absolute monarchs is another. In a statement, Veeva said Gassner's compensation reflected a stock option grant that depended on the company's share performance and 'is intended as Mr. Gassner's only equity compensation through 2030.' The company said his $US475,000 salary is 'one of the lowest' for CEOs at publicly traded companies. Right behind Gassner on the top-pay list was Patrick W. Smith, aka Rick Smith, who was a founder of Axon Enterprise. It was previously called TASER International and was named for what is still Axon's best-known product: Tasers. The company says its product line also includes 'body cameras, in-car cameras, cloud-hosted digital evidence management solutions, productivity software and real-time operations capabilities.' Loading Smith's total compensation in 2024, using traditional accounting, was $US164.5 million. In a statement, the company said that number reflected 'a long-term, performance-based equity award,' which he would receive only 'over seven years, contingent on Axon meeting ambitious performance goals.' The median Axon employee was paid $US205,322 in 2024, handsome wages compared with salaries at most companies. Even so, because Smith's compensation package was so big, it would take an Axon employee 801 years to earn Smith's pay for just one year. And, using the compensation-actually-paid metric, he earned vastly more: $US385 million in 2024. Gassner at Veeva Systems raked in $US284 million using that measure. The big picture Corporate compensation filings are tedious reading, but they are a trove of information. That may be why they have never been uniformly popular in corner offices and why the Trump administration is beginning a process that could lead to the curtailment or demise of some of these disclosure requirements. In my view, that would be a shame. I would hate to lose access to any of the details being revealed by public corporations. Consider some of the highlights from this year's disclosures, compiled by Equilar. All told, for the 100 highest-paid CEOs of publicly traded companies in 2024, the median CEO compensation, much of it from stock options, was $US37 million, using the traditional accounting metric. That is a big number. Comparing it with what corporate employees make is revealing. The median worker at these companies was paid $US110,125, which is an astonishingly big pay gap. It would take the median employee — the one right in the middle of the income distribution — 357 years to earn what the median CEO earned in just one year. And using comparable, historical data that excludes the compensation at private equity firms, the pay ratio at publicly traded companies is almost 350-to-1, or, simply, 350, which is more than ever before. As I've pointed out before, pay disparities of this magnitude reflect levels of income inequality that were considered repugnant 50 years ago. The American social structure was flatter and CEO-to-worker pay ratios were lower then. Motivating executives is one thing. Rewarding them like absolute monarchs is another. Through the 1970s, one study found, the pay ratio for big companies was less than 20. In the 1980s, Peter F. Drucker, the economist and Wall Street Journal columnist, said it felt 'about right' when CEOs received 10 to 12 times what workers earned. Loading Yes, it's better to be the boss. Anybody in the workforce already knows this without seeing any of these details. But the details matter. Happily, for investors and for rank-and-file workers, we now have considerable information on exactly how well CEOs are paid — and how much more money they receive than everybody else. The Securities and Exchange Commission will convene later this month for a formal discussion about whether to change the rules about what companies need to reveal about CEO pay. Many companies would like less public disclosure. But after 15 years of looking at this issue, I think we need much more.
The Age
09-06-2025
- Business
- The Age
The Wall Street CEO who made $10.5 billion last year
Karp was in second place in last year's report with nearly $US1.1 billion in gains, trailing Elon Musk, the Tesla CEO, who gained $US1.4 billion. Musk's name is absent from the top-paid lists this year, but he has been fighting in the courts to retain a past, gargantuan pay package that a judge in Delaware has voided twice. The Tesla shares in that contested pay package were worth more than $US98 billion at the end of May, according to Courtney Yu, director of research at Equilar. Musk funnelled $US250 million into President Donald Trump's campaign efforts and was behind the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. Facing declining sales at Tesla, he has left the White House for renewed work at his companies, which also include SpaceX, a rocket company and military contractor; X, a social media platform; and xAI, an artificial intelligence company. Classic compensation There's another important way to look at executive compensation: the estimated value of a pay package when it was originally granted. This annual snapshot must also be disclosed by corporations, thanks to government requirements that were tightened under Dodd-Frank. This more traditional approach, which the Times has covered regularly with the help of Equilar since 2012, tends to produce smaller figures for CEO compensation than the 'compensation actually paid' approach. But the numbers are still enormous, compared with the earnings of most working people. It, too, is being reevaluated by the Trump administration. The biggest payday in corporate America last year, using this traditional measure of executive compensation, went to Peter Gassner of Veeva Systems, a cloud-computing company focused on the life sciences, with a total compensation of $US172.4 million, nearly all from stock options and awards. The median employee at the company earned $US137,866. It would take a worker at Veeva Systems 1251 years to earn what Gassner did in 2024. Motivating executives is one thing. Rewarding them like absolute monarchs is another. In a statement, Veeva said Gassner's compensation reflected a stock option grant that depended on the company's share performance and 'is intended as Mr. Gassner's only equity compensation through 2030.' The company said his $US475,000 salary is 'one of the lowest' for CEOs at publicly traded companies. Right behind Gassner on the top-pay list was Patrick W. Smith, aka Rick Smith, who was a founder of Axon Enterprise. It was previously called TASER International and was named for what is still Axon's best-known product: Tasers. The company says its product line also includes 'body cameras, in-car cameras, cloud-hosted digital evidence management solutions, productivity software and real-time operations capabilities.' Loading Smith's total compensation in 2024, using traditional accounting, was $US164.5 million. In a statement, the company said that number reflected 'a long-term, performance-based equity award,' which he would receive only 'over seven years, contingent on Axon meeting ambitious performance goals.' The median Axon employee was paid $US205,322 in 2024, handsome wages compared with salaries at most companies. Even so, because Smith's compensation package was so big, it would take an Axon employee 801 years to earn Smith's pay for just one year. And, using the compensation-actually-paid metric, he earned vastly more: $US385 million in 2024. Gassner at Veeva Systems raked in $US284 million using that measure. The big picture Corporate compensation filings are tedious reading, but they are a trove of information. That may be why they have never been uniformly popular in corner offices and why the Trump administration is beginning a process that could lead to the curtailment or demise of some of these disclosure requirements. In my view, that would be a shame. I would hate to lose access to any of the details being revealed by public corporations. Consider some of the highlights from this year's disclosures, compiled by Equilar. All told, for the 100 highest-paid CEOs of publicly traded companies in 2024, the median CEO compensation, much of it from stock options, was $US37 million, using the traditional accounting metric. That is a big number. Comparing it with what corporate employees make is revealing. The median worker at these companies was paid $US110,125, which is an astonishingly big pay gap. It would take the median employee — the one right in the middle of the income distribution — 357 years to earn what the median CEO earned in just one year. And using comparable, historical data that excludes the compensation at private equity firms, the pay ratio at publicly traded companies is almost 350-to-1, or, simply, 350, which is more than ever before. As I've pointed out before, pay disparities of this magnitude reflect levels of income inequality that were considered repugnant 50 years ago. The American social structure was flatter and CEO-to-worker pay ratios were lower then. Motivating executives is one thing. Rewarding them like absolute monarchs is another. Through the 1970s, one study found, the pay ratio for big companies was less than 20. In the 1980s, Peter F. Drucker, the economist and Wall Street Journal columnist, said it felt 'about right' when CEOs received 10 to 12 times what workers earned. Loading Yes, it's better to be the boss. Anybody in the workforce already knows this without seeing any of these details. But the details matter. Happily, for investors and for rank-and-file workers, we now have considerable information on exactly how well CEOs are paid — and how much more money they receive than everybody else. The Securities and Exchange Commission will convene later this month for a formal discussion about whether to change the rules about what companies need to reveal about CEO pay. Many companies would like less public disclosure. But after 15 years of looking at this issue, I think we need much more.
The Age
29-05-2025
- Business
- The Age
‘Worse than Greece': Japan's bond vortex sends a global warning
(A war whose future, after Wednesday's ruling by the US Court of International Trade, is now uncertain). Loading And Japan's bond market, the third-largest in the world, is connected to the rest of the financial world's plumbing, especially with the US financial system. For decades there has been a massive 'carry trade,' where Japanese institutions and investors, and foreign hedge funds, have borrowed very cheaply in Japan to invest in higher-yielding US assets, including US bonds. The macro picture suggests that bond investors have, relatively recently, started demanding a bigger premium for the risk of holding long-dated bonds, particularly the ultra-long maturities of some of the Japanese bonds on issue. There's a definite correlation between the April 2 announcement and the spike in Japanese and US bond yields, with Trump's aggressive tariffs casting a pall over the global economic outlook and the outlook for America's major trading partners, of which Japan is one. America's assault on global trade, along with some of the Trump administration's other 'America First' policies, has ignited a 'Sell America' trade, which is being seen most obviously in the US bond market and the value of the US dollar, which has fallen 9.2 per cent against a basket of America's or trading partners so far this year, including 4 percentage points since April 2. Some of the capital fleeing Trump's America has headed to Japan, with a surge in foreign purchases of Japanese shares and bonds since April 2. Europe has experienced something similar. More threatening and potentially destabilising for the US is the potential for the Japanese carry trade to unwind. Japan is the biggest holder of US bonds, with investments of more than $US1.1 trillion ($1.7 trillion), along with significant holdings of other financial assets. Even Japanese households, faced for decades with negative short-term bond yields in their home market, have chased the higher returns available in the US. Now, with domestic yields rising and the US dollar tumbling, the risk-reward equation for Japanese investors is rebalancing and, after factoring in the cost of hedging the currency exposures, is starting to shift towards their home market. The US is in an analogous fiscal position to Japan, albeit that its government debt isn't (yet?) at Japan's stratospheric levels. Its debt to GDP ratio is around 100 per cent, with Trump's 'One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act' projected to add $US3.8 trillion or more to debt over the next decade and to raise that rate to about 118 per cent 2034. The BoJ has been reducing its purchases of government debt - it owns about 52 per cent of that debt – as it has begun normalising its monetary policies. It has been reducing its bond purchases by 400 billion yen (about $4.3 billion) each quarter. The US Federal Reserve has, similarly, been allowing its holdings of bonds to shrink by not reinvesting the proceeds as the bonds mature. In both markets, that means the former major buyer of the bonds is gradually withdrawing a key source of demand and liquidity for the bonds, even as their issuance continues to increase and, in the US, where there has been a focus on short-term debt issuance, the volume of maturing debt is surging. Loading In Japan, where life insurers and other institutions have been among the major non-government buyers, changed solvency requirements and heavy losses from existing holders – four major insurers lost more than $90 billion on their bond holdings between them in the first quarter – are also diminishing demand. Less demand, coupled with greater supply, inevitably means higher yields and rising interest costs for already stretched government finances. Japan's prime minister, Shigeru Ishiba, under pressure to cut taxes to blunt the impact of the rise in interest rates, said last week that it was important to recognise the dangers of a society and economy with (high) interest rates. 'Our country's fiscal situation is undoubtedly extremely poor, worse than Greece's,' he said, presumably a reference to the debt-inducted crisis Greece faced in 2009, when there was a serious risk that it would be forced from the European Union. The US, of course, had its last remaining AAA credit rating withdrawn by Moody's earlier this month because of its strained and deteriorating public finances. With an inflation rate above the yields on its bonds, despite their recent spikes, real interest rates in Japan remain negative, which may help with management of government debt but may also deter buyers if they doubt the BoJ's ability to bring inflation under control. Growth isn't going to help much. After Trump announced his tariffs – Japan faces the baseline 10 per cent tariff, a 24 per cent 'reciprocal' tariff and the 25 per cent levy on its auto exports the US – the BoJ downgraded its outlook for economic growth this year from 1.1 per cent to 0.5 per cent and from 1 per cent to 0.7 per cent next year. Japan's circumstances are difficult, and made more so by Trump's trade policies, which will hit Japan at a vulnerable moment.
Sydney Morning Herald
29-05-2025
- Business
- Sydney Morning Herald
‘Worse than Greece': Japan's bond vortex sends a global warning
(A war whose future, after Wednesday's ruling by the US Court of International Trade, is now uncertain). Loading And Japan's bond market, the third-largest in the world, is connected to the rest of the financial world's plumbing, especially with the US financial system. For decades there has been a massive 'carry trade,' where Japanese institutions and investors, and foreign hedge funds, have borrowed very cheaply in Japan to invest in higher-yielding US assets, including US bonds. The macro picture suggests that bond investors have, relatively recently, started demanding a bigger premium for the risk of holding long-dated bonds, particularly the ultra-long maturities of some of the Japanese bonds on issue. There's a definite correlation between the April 2 announcement and the spike in Japanese and US bond yields, with Trump's aggressive tariffs casting a pall over the global economic outlook and the outlook for America's major trading partners, of which Japan is one. America's assault on global trade, along with some of the Trump administration's other 'America First' policies, has ignited a 'Sell America' trade, which is being seen most obviously in the US bond market and the value of the US dollar, which has fallen 9.2 per cent against a basket of America's or trading partners so far this year, including 4 percentage points since April 2. Some of the capital fleeing Trump's America has headed to Japan, with a surge in foreign purchases of Japanese shares and bonds since April 2. Europe has experienced something similar. More threatening and potentially destabilising for the US is the potential for the Japanese carry trade to unwind. Japan is the biggest holder of US bonds, with investments of more than $US1.1 trillion ($1.7 trillion), along with significant holdings of other financial assets. Even Japanese households, faced for decades with negative short-term bond yields in their home market, have chased the higher returns available in the US. Now, with domestic yields rising and the US dollar tumbling, the risk-reward equation for Japanese investors is rebalancing and, after factoring in the cost of hedging the currency exposures, is starting to shift towards their home market. The US is in an analogous fiscal position to Japan, albeit that its government debt isn't (yet?) at Japan's stratospheric levels. Its debt to GDP ratio is around 100 per cent, with Trump's 'One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act' projected to add $US3.8 trillion or more to debt over the next decade and to raise that rate to about 118 per cent 2034. The BoJ has been reducing its purchases of government debt - it owns about 52 per cent of that debt – as it has begun normalising its monetary policies. It has been reducing its bond purchases by 400 billion yen (about $4.3 billion) each quarter. The US Federal Reserve has, similarly, been allowing its holdings of bonds to shrink by not reinvesting the proceeds as the bonds mature. In both markets, that means the former major buyer of the bonds is gradually withdrawing a key source of demand and liquidity for the bonds, even as their issuance continues to increase and, in the US, where there has been a focus on short-term debt issuance, the volume of maturing debt is surging. Loading In Japan, where life insurers and other institutions have been among the major non-government buyers, changed solvency requirements and heavy losses from existing holders – four major insurers lost more than $90 billion on their bond holdings between them in the first quarter – are also diminishing demand. Less demand, coupled with greater supply, inevitably means higher yields and rising interest costs for already stretched government finances. Japan's prime minister, Shigeru Ishiba, under pressure to cut taxes to blunt the impact of the rise in interest rates, said last week that it was important to recognise the dangers of a society and economy with (high) interest rates. 'Our country's fiscal situation is undoubtedly extremely poor, worse than Greece's,' he said, presumably a reference to the debt-inducted crisis Greece faced in 2009, when there was a serious risk that it would be forced from the European Union. The US, of course, had its last remaining AAA credit rating withdrawn by Moody's earlier this month because of its strained and deteriorating public finances. With an inflation rate above the yields on its bonds, despite their recent spikes, real interest rates in Japan remain negative, which may help with management of government debt but may also deter buyers if they doubt the BoJ's ability to bring inflation under control. Growth isn't going to help much. After Trump announced his tariffs – Japan faces the baseline 10 per cent tariff, a 24 per cent 'reciprocal' tariff and the 25 per cent levy on its auto exports the US – the BoJ downgraded its outlook for economic growth this year from 1.1 per cent to 0.5 per cent and from 1 per cent to 0.7 per cent next year. Japan's circumstances are difficult, and made more so by Trump's trade policies, which will hit Japan at a vulnerable moment.
