Malaysia’s Hock Tan beat out Apple’s Tim Cook, Tesla’s Elon Musk, and Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg to be top paid CEO in America

America’s highest-paid CEO isn’t Apple’s Tim Cook, Tesla’s Elon Musk, or Meta Platforms’ Mark Zuckerberg – it’s Broadcom’s Hock Tan, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) found in an analysis published this week.

The Malaysian-born Tan was awarded US$162 million in compensation last year, but it comes with a catch: he’ll only receive the full amount if his company’s stock hits a certain level by 2025, the WSJ said.

Broadcom said that Tan’s pay was also dependent on him remaining in his role for another five years, and that he won’t get any more equity or cash bonuses until that period has passed.

The semiconductor company’s shares are up 27 per cent this year and 106 per cent over the past 12 months, lifting its total market capitalisation to US$655 billion.

Tan has been Broadcom’s CEO since 2006, and previously topped the WSJ’s list in 2017, when he was awarded US$103 million.

Two other CEOs made nine-figure salaries in 2023, per the analysis: Palo Alto Networks’ Nikesh Arora and Blackstone’s Steve Schwarzman.

Arora made US$151 million, mostly in the form of share grants covering the next three years, while Schwarzman – who’s known for his opulent lifestyle and his past support of Donald Trump – earned US$120 million.

Shares in Palo Alto Networks and Blackstone jumped 110 per cent and 54 last year, respectively.

Apple’s Cook, Netflix’s Ted Sarandos, and Warner Bros. Discovery’s David Zaslav also cracked the list of the US’s 10 best-paid CEOs, while no women featured in the top 25.