Can anything stop the rise in CEO pay? Apparently, not Trump-era tax policies
A new study from a team of researchers found that a 2017 tax policy aimed at curbing executive compensation had basically zero effect.
The sky-high pay of American CEOs often feels invincible. The New York Times recently walked readers through how Elon Musk’s “landmark” compensation plan, which linked his pay to ambitious Tesla profit targets, has so far not only given him nearly $60 billion, but also spawned copycat pay packages that have made other CEOs richer, further widening the gap with workers. Amazon, meanwhile, just got reamed for CEO Andy Jassy’s $212 million pay package: a $175,000 base salary, the rest entirely performance-based, but all told equaling 6,474 times the median worker’s salary. Proxy advisory groups have started urging investors to speak out against pay packages this outlandish, but last year shareholders voted against just 67 of the top 3,000 public companies’ proposals.