The average total compensation for CEOs at S&P 500 companies was $18.9 million in 2024, according to American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO). That’s a 7% increase from the year before. That same year, the median pay for employees was just $49,500 — about a 3% increase.
That’s a substantial difference between the two sides. But the employees play a pivotal role in keeping a company running. And with rising costs, it wouldn’t be remiss to boost their pay a little (or a lot).
In an ideal world, CEOs and their employees would have more equal pay. And while it’s a thought experiment only, this pay gap begs the question: How much money would each employee at their respective company make if their CEO’s pay was distributed equally amongst them? Find out below.
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QXO, Inc.
- CEO: Brad Jacobs
- CEO pay: $189,367,735
- Estimated employee count: 211, per Yahoo Finance
- CEO pay split evenly across all company employees: $897,477
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Veeva Systems, Inc.
- CEO: Peter Gassner
- CEO pay: $172,436,133
- Estimated employee count: 7,291, per Macrotrends
- CEO pay split evenly across all company employees: $23,650
Axon Enterprise, Inc.
- CEO: Patrick Smith
- CEO pay: $164,525,721
- Estimated employee count: 4,970, per Macrotrends
- CEO pay split evenly across all company employees: $33,104
Snowflake, Inc.
- CEO: Sridhar Ramaswamy
- CEO pay: $101,325,374
- Estimated employee count: 7,834, per Macrotrends
- CEO pay split evenly across all company employees: $12,934
Starbucks Corp.
- CEO: Brian Niccol
- CEO pay: $95,801,676
- Estimated employee count: 381,500, per Macrotrends
- CEO pay split evenly across all company employees: $251
General Electric Co.
- CEO: Lawrence Culp
- CEO pay: $88,954,586
- Estimated employee count: 57,000, per StockAnalysis.com
- CEO pay split evenly across all company employees: $1,561
Tevogen Bio Holdings, Inc.
- CEO: Ryan Saadi
- CEO pay: $87,764,783
- Estimated employee count: 17, per PitchBook
- CEO pay split evenly across all company employees: $5,162,634
Ares Management Corp.
- CEO: Michael Arougheti
- CEO pay: $85,381,842
- Estimated employee count: 3,200, per Macrotrends
- CEO pay split evenly across all company employees: $26,682
Playtika Holding Corp.
- CEO: Robert Antokol
- CEO pay: $84,141,574
- Estimated employee count: 3,500, per StockAnalysis.com
- CEO pay split evenly across all company employees: $24,040
Blackstone, Inc.
- CEO: Stephen Schwarzman
- CEO pay: $84,027,074
- Estimated employee count: 4,895, per Macrotrends
- CEO pay split evenly across all company employees: $17,166
Distributing All S&P 500 CEOs’ Salaries Across Workers
The combined total compensation for the top 10 S&P 500 CEOs is $1,153,726,498, or just under $1.2 billion. As of the latest U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data (2023), there were 171.9 million total US workers. If you were to split the total CEO pay across these workers, the individual pay would be $6.71.
When you consider all S&P 500 companies, the average CEO’s total compensation is $18.9 million. Multiply that amount by all 500 companies and the grand total is $9,450,000,000 (or $9.45 billion). Splitting that amount across all U.S. workers would get you $55 per person. It’s higher, but not life-changing.
Editor’s note: Each CEO’s salary was sourced from Salary.com.
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This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: If the Top 10 S&P 500 CEO Salaries Were Distributed Equally Among Workers, How Much Money Would Each Person Make?
