9 top executives with $1 salaries

CEO Meg Whitman makes just a $1 salary, but when stock, options, and other goodies are included, her total pay last year was a hefty $15 million. Contrast that with, say, Whole Foods' John Mackey: His total pay was just over $69,000.

Richard Kinder, Kinder Morgan

one million salary richard kinder
  • Title: CEO
  • Salary: $1
  • Total pay: $1

Kinder gets paid a $1 base salary, and even reimburses the company for the cost of his parking and health-care premiums. But hey, billionaires can afford those kinds of sacrifices. Last year, he realized stock gains worth $1.1 billion from shares he received after Kinder Morgan went private in 2007.

The company points out that Kinder received the shares directly from investors at no cost to public shareholders, and that he invested "substantial amounts" of his own money into the management-led buyout.

Total compensation is calculated as the sum of base salary, discretionary and performance-based cash bonuses, the grant-date fair value of stock and option awards during the fiscal year, and other compensation like benefits and perks. Equilar, an executive compensation research firm, looked at top executives of companies with more than $1 billion in revenue that filed a proxy statement as of June 30, 2013. Pay data based on companies' fiscal year 2012.
See more on Richard Kinder from Equilar.
  @CNNMoney - Last updated August 06 2013 06:07 AM ET

Partner Offers

Most Popular