Top 20 Highest Paid CEOs in the World

Ramish Cheema
9 min read

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In this piece, we will take a look at the top twenty highest paid chief executive officers in the world. If you want to jump ahead to the top five highest paid CEOs and skip our analysis of the labor market, head on over to Top 5 Highest Paid CEOs in the World.

The labor market is one of the hottest topics in America right now. This is because its strength is directly tied to the Federal Reserve's decision to either further raise interest rates, keep them steady at where they are, or cut them down. The strenght of the labor market is an indicator of broader economic strength - as more people spend more money, firms make more money, and they hire more people to expand their operations while increasing salaries at the same time. In a circular motion, these high wages leave people with more spending power, which injects more money into the economy and leads to both growth and high inflation.

At the same time, while salaries have grown by quite a bit in America this past year, they are still nothing in comparison to what those at the top of the corporate food chain earn. And this is despite the fact that 2022 was not a great year for the corporate world, as high growth firms (those whose CEOs often earn the most) saw their revenue falter in an inflationary environment. Looking at the data, the Labor Department's estimates show that the average salary in the U.S. sits at $61,900. However, as a whole, you might not be surprised to learn that it isn't the CEOs that make the big bucks. Instead, it's the cardiologists that earn $421,330 on average, with orthopedic and pediatric surgeons coming in second and third places, respectively. These are of course only salaries, and executive compensation often also includes share options that are worth tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars.

Since there are thousands of companies small and large and each has its own CEO, average salaries for CEO are quite low than what a cardiologist is expected to bring in. And, if we're to believe estimates from the Labor Department, then there are just 16,870 cardiologists in the U.S. - quite a small figure when we consider that there are 33.2 million small businesses in America. Demand and supply, it seems, work everywhere and not only in the mercantile markets.

Building on this, the top paid CEOs do end up making more money. After all, while operating on a human heart is one of the most complex tasks in the world, a CEO is responsible for handling billions of dollars and ensuring that tens of thousands of employees are able to make a living. And if you were feeling bad for the CEOs when you saw the figures for cardiologists' average salary, we've got just the statistics to lift you up. According to Equilar, the tough economic environment did have an impact on the total compensation for CEOs of S&P 500 companies. Their compensation grew by just 0.9% annually last year, for the slowest increase since 2015. However, it's not as if the CEOs suddenly saw fiscal misery leaving them unable to contemplate a stable future themselves. Compared to the average cardiologist's salary of $421,330, an S&P500 CEO made on median 14.8 million in 2022. That's more than thirty times what an average cardiologist made and a whopping 240 times what an average American can expect to make in a year. Quite a difference, we'd say - leaving the difference in standards of living between the two groups simply unimaginable.

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