Elon Musk received nearly $6.7 billion in compensation in 2020 — earning the tech entrepreneur over 11 times more than the next highest-paid chief executive, according to a recent analysis.
Musk's huge pay came in the form of stock options that give him the right to purchase shares of Tesla at a pre-set price, as opposed to a salary or cash bonuses.
Tesla had to hit various business targets based on revenue growth, stock price and other figures that were spelled out in an earnings package approved at the time by shareholders.
The electric carmaker's stratospheric 740 percent rise in stock price in 2020 locked Musk's ability to exercise his stock options and cemented him at the top of Bloomberg's annual Pay Index.
Those sorts of high pay packages that are associated with the stock performance and other lofty business performance metrics are known as moonshot packages, as they're meant to incentivize executives to boost the value of the company they manage.
Musk noted that these kinds of awards have become more common since Bloomberg announced Musk's unusually massive one in 2018.
At least 15 executives got awards worth $100 million or more last year, up three-fold from when Musk got his. Companies who have implemented similar award packages include Restoration Hardware, JPMorgan and Paycom Software, Bloomberg reported.
Elon Musk's pay was however so unique that the list includes a button that allows readers to scale without Musk.
Musk's massive rake has now totaled $33 billion in on-paper gains so far — and has placed him at the top of Bloomberg's annual pay list for three consecutive years.
The second highest - paid executive on Bloomberg's list was Mike Pykosz, CEO of Oak Street Health, who received $568 million in salary, bonus, stock awards, options awards and perks in 2017.
Among the Top 10 highest paid CEOs are women, most of them white. Only five of the country's 100 top-paid CEOs were women last year according to Bloomberg.
Musk's economic package and the rising popularity of so-called pay performance packages comes as, by some measures, the economic inequality between executives and rank-and-file workers reaches an all-time high.
According to Bloomberg, the median ratio between the pay for S&P 500 CEOs and their typical employees rose in 2020 to 182, up for the third year in a row. Some firms logged ratios in the thousands, Bloomberg noted.