Malaysian-born Hock Tan tops US CEO pay chart with $162M earning

By Dat Nguyen May 22, 2024 | 04:41 pm PT

Hock Tan, CEO of Broadcom, speaks on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange shortly before the opening bell in New York, U.S., Feb. 12, 2018. Photo by Reuters

The highest paid CEO in the U.S. last year was Malaysian-born Hock Tan with a compensation of $162 million.

The top executive of semiconductor giant Broadcom has been topping the pay charts since 2006, according to a list compiled by the Wall Street Journal.

The criteria Tan needed to fulfill for that pay was staying on the job for five years and Broadcom’s share price must reach certain targets after October 2025.

Tan was followed by Nikesh Arora at cybersecurity firm Palo Alto Networks with $151 million compensation.

In the third place was Steven Schwarzman of investment management firm Blackstone who made $120 million.

The Journal found that the median pay for executives rose 8.35% to $15.7 million, a new record, according to its analysis of data on more than 400 companies.

Most of the executives received a year-on-year raise of at least 9% while one in four got 25% or more.

Chip and computer hardware makers accounted for six of the 25 best-performing companies – including Nvidia, the top performer.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang saw his earning surging 215% year-on-year to $34.2 million, while Meta Platforms executive Mark Zuckerberg got $24.4 million, up 194%.