On June 5, 2026, the Internal Revenue Service released Notice 2026-36 announcing its intent to issue proposed regulations under Section 4960 of the Internal Revenue Code addressing the significant expansion under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) of the excise tax on tax-exempt organization executive compensation. The Notice provides important interim guidance on the effective date of the expanded definition of “covered employee” and confirms that the IRS intends to preserve certain regulatory exceptions that protect tax-exempt organizations from inadvertent application of the tax. READ MORE
Deloitte Salary Numbers Are Out and Some People Are Salty
Compensation threads were once a yearly tradition here at Going Concern many, many, many years ago but at some point Reddit took over the task so we’ve swung over there to grab some details on 2026 compensation at Deloitte. Mainly because salary information is valuable for everyone employed in the field, it lets us know where the market is at. Sad to say the market is at a not very great place right now. READ MORE
After college, I moved from New York to Texas because the South is cheaper
After graduating with a bachelor's in computer science in 2023, a software company offered me an exciting job that paid $60,000 a year.
The catch? I had to move away from home. READ MORE
New York Times 100 Highest-Paid CEOs
It pays to be a CEO in America. Running a major U.S. corporation carries the intense responsibility of guiding an organization through market disruptions while maintaining financial growth. For CEOs, this pressure comes with lucrative pay packages. The median compensation for the 100 highest-paid chief executive officers in America reached $39.4 million in 2025, marking a 35.8% year-over-year increase.
For 19 years, Equilar and The New York Times have partnered to analyze trends in CEO compensation across corporate America. The Times recently published coverage of new findings from the annual study, highlighting a steep trajectory in corner-office pay. For the purposes of this post, Equilar analyzed just a portion of the findings provided to The New York Times. This post examines the 100 largest CEO pay packages among U.S. public companies with revenues of at least $1 billion and that filed a proxy statement by April 30, 2026 READ MORE
Led by Elon Musk, C.E.O. Pay Heads Toward the Stars
Even among the nation’s best-paid corporate chiefs, Elon Musk stands alone. His compensation last year was a mind-boggling $132.3 billion. That’s not just 2.5 million times what the typical Tesla employee made; it’s 153 times the compensation of the second-highest paid chief executive.
Dylan Field, who heads Figma, an online design platform, was runner-up to Mr. Musk in the rankings. But in terms of wealth created, he was way behind. His pay, $864.4 million, was a mere rounding error for Mr. Musk. READ MORE
How Elon Musk is redefining executive compensation
CEO pay packages have reached extraordinary levels, and Elon Musk stands far above everyone else with a compensation package valued at roughly $132 billion, The New York Times reports.
Musk’s compensation is almost entirely stock-based rather than salary or cash bonuses, receiving shares only if Tesla achieves a series of ambitious long-term performance targets tied to company value, vehicle production, autonomous driving initiatives and robotics projects. READ MORE
Trump administration asks banks to monitor employers paying unlawful workers
The U.S. Department of the Treasury on Friday called on U.S. banks to detect and report identity theft, payroll fraud and other illicit activities tied to people not authorized to work in the United States, following President Donald Trump's executive order last month directing financial institutions to increase their scrutiny of non-citizens' banking activities. READ MORE
Executive pay: The price of the corner office
Executive pay has not merely risen; it has taken off. In America, bosses of large firms earned 281 times as much as a typical worker in 2024, compared with 21 times in 1965. In Britain, the median FTSE 100 chief executive received £4.58 million in 2024/25, about 122 times the median full-time worker. (2) The Modern Chief Executive has not, despite the best efforts of remuneration consultants, evolved into a separate species.
The better explanation is scale. The largest companies have become bigger, more international and more complex. Their markets cross borders; their balance sheets have acquired extra zeroes; their mistakes can require parliamentary hearings. A boss of a £100 billion firm need not be 100 times cleverer than a boss of a £1 billion firm to be worth much more to shareholders. READ MORE
CEO Pay Trends: A Post-Proxy Season Recap
The 2026 proxy season has officially come to a close, as companies have finished filing their annual proxy statements (DEF 14A) with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). These disclosures provide a detailed view into executive compensation programs and workforce pay dynamics across the U.S.
This analysis examines fiscal year 2025 proxy statements filed by Equilar 500 companies—the largest U.S. public companies by revenue—to identify emerging trends in executive compensation. By tracking data from 2021 through 2025, the study provides a multi-year perspective on how CEO pay has evolved relative to median employee compensation and explores ongoing developments in gender pay equity among top executives. READ MORE
Nvidia salaries revealed: How much the AI giant pays software engineers and researchers
Foreign hiring has slowed across tech, with the Trump administration's immigration crackdown prompting some firms to reduce H-1B visa sponsorships.
Nvidia, one of the most coveted employers in the field, appears largely undeterred. Federal filings suggest Nvidia is spending aggressively to maintain its lead in the AI race, hiring across both hardware and software roles while also staffing up on customer-facing positions to help deploy its systems widely. READ MORE
Salary hikes signal new law firm pay race after lucrative year
New York law firm Milbank said on Tuesday it will increase salaries for its associates to as high as $455,000, likely triggering a wave of similar pay raises among large U.S. firms that traditionally align compensation for junior lawyers to remain competitive.
Milbank's move, which follows an earlier round of raises in the industry in 2023, comes after large law firms posted strong financial results in 2025, though lawyer compensation and investments in technologies like AI have also buoyed expenses. READ MORE
High & Low MBA Salaries & Bonuses At The Top 100 U.S. B-Schools
If the big payday is the big motivator for pursing an MBA, the M7s are still showing the money.
A 2025 graduate of Harvard Business School scored a base salary of $470,000 to start, the highest reported salary of any other graduate at any other business school, according to data collected in U.S. News & World Report as part of the magazine’s annual ranking of U.S. B-schools.
At least two more graduates at Columbia Business School and the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania earned base salaries of $450,000. READ MORE
89% of Financial Services Firms Say Their Executive Pay Systems Can’t Keep Up
Managing executive compensation is a growing challenge for financial services firms, with nearly nine in 10 (89%) saying their in-house technology can’t keep pace with demand, according to new research by CSC, a provider of business administration and compliance solutions.
The research shows that rising complexity, regulatory pressure, and expanding global participation place increasing strain on internal systems and teams. READ MORE
TVA execs respond after Trump memo prompts slash in pay
Tennessee Valley Authority's Board of Directors says they are “fully aligned” with President Trump’s call for fiscal discipline.
Their new statement comes following an announcement the energy provider would be making major cuts to executive compensation and leadership positions. READ MORE
CEO’s Pay, Now Nearly $100 Million, Is Most Rejected in Corporate America
Shareholders at Palo Alto Networks Inc. have a recurring beef with the company over how much it pays the chief executive officer and other senior leaders. READ MORE
California Voters to Consider Health Care Executive Compensation Cap
California employers in the health care industry should prepare for increased scrutiny of executive compensation as a new statewide initiative heads toward the November 3, 2026, General Election ballot.
The California Secretary of State announced that Initiative 1985, formally titled “Limits Compensation for Health Care Executives, Managers, and Administrators. Initiative Statute,” became eligible for the ballot on May 12, 2026. READ MORE
SEC Proposes Significant Changes to Filer Status Framework and Executive Compensation Disclosure
As previously reported in Proskauer’s client alert (available here), on May 19, 2026, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) proposed significant amendments to its public company reporting framework to simplify the existing filer status regime and substantially expand eligibility for scaled disclosure accommodations. Consistent with SEC Chairman Paul Atkins’ plan to “Make IPOs Great Again,” the proposal is part of a broader effort to reduce compliance burdens and costs in order to encourage companies to enter and remain in the public markets.
This is particularly relevant for executive compensation. If adopted, the amendments would significantly reduce the executive compensation disclosure burden for a large number of public companies. READ MORE
Equity compensation confusion? Survey reveals key disconnect
For employees at private companies, equity compensation is a deferred promise that the company’s success will eventually translate into personal financial gain. According to Morgan Stanley at Work’s most recent State of the Workplace Financial Benefits Study, 67% of employees and 88% of HR leaders at private companies say the prospect of a future liquidity event or IPO is important to them.
However, with the IPO market still navigating uncertain economic conditions, many of those employees are in a prolonged holding pattern because they are invested in an outcome with unclear timing. PwC’s 2026 market outlook suggests that investors remain selective, and companies still need the scale, profitability and operating discipline to come to market on favorable terms. For employees holding equity, that keeps the promise of a future payout intact while leaving the timing of that payoff unresolved. READ MORE
College grads expect an $80k salary. Good luck with that
Musk Could Receive Up to $760 Billion in SpaceX Compensation
Elon Musk stands to receive one of the largest compensation packages ever proposed if SpaceX achieves a series of ambitious financial and operational milestones, according to the company’s recent S-1 filing.
The package consists of two separate equity awards that together could grant Musk more than 1.3 billion shares. At the highest valuation targets, the awards could be worth approximately $760 billion. READ MORE