America’s Top CEOs Who Take a $1 Salary

Updated: Jul 14, 2023By Emma VernerBusiness

This article originally appeared on Investing.com. It has been republished here with permission.

©Pool/Getty Images

It’s easy to assume that the CEOs of America’s most successful companies would be raking in mountains of cash year after year. While this may be true, in a surprising number of cases this isn’t because of their yearly salaries. Some of the top business executives in the country are making just a dollar per year, and for an interesting reason.

Beginning with the CEOs of General Electric and General Motors during WWII, business leaders lent their companies to war efforts but decided to forgo their large salaries in order to help out the government, which could not legally use the work of unpaid volunteers. That legacy has lasted to this day, with the wealthiest men and women in the country deciding to give up big paychecks to appear humble, while still making fat stacks behind the scenes.

1. Larry Ellison

Company: Oracle
Job Title: Chief Technical Officer (Former CEO)

While Larry Ellison is currently the CTO of Oracle and currently making $1 a year, this wasn’t always the case. A co-founder of the company, Ellison served as CEO for a whopping 37 years before stepping down from the role.

Larry Ellison ©drserg / Shutterstock.com

As one of the richest men alive, Ellison is worth over a hundred billion dollars. His meager earnings these days are hardly even a drop in the bucket. The tech visionary even owns the island of Lanai in Hawaii, which is home to over 3,000 people.

2. Mark Zuckerberg

Company: Meta (Facebook)
Job Title: CEO

Though Facebook rebranded to Meta, one thing that is unlikely to change is leader Mark Zuckerberg’s impressive net worth, no matter how little he makes each year. And while his official salary is just one dollar, the company is rumored to spend nearly $25 million per year on a personal security team.

Mark Zuckerberg ©Frederic Legrand - COMEO / Shutterstock.com

The Facebook founder might try to keep up appearances of a normal life–driving an old beat-up Honda and living in a relatively normal-sized home instead of a mega-mansion – but it’s difficult to distract from the fact that he’s worth billions upon billions of dollars.

3. David Filo

Company: Yahoo! Inc.
Job Title: Chief Yahoo

Filo grew up in Wisconsin and went to college at Tulane University, where he got a B.S. in computer engineering. Then he went on to get a Master’s degree at Stanford University, which brought him close to Silicon Valley and internet innovation.

David Filo ©Rob Loud/Getty Images

Along with Jerry Yang, David Filo founded Yahoo! in 2004. Originally called “Jerry and David’s Guide to the World Wide Web”, the pair opted to shorten the name. Once ranking the 379th-richest man in the world, Filo is far from needing a yearly salary.

4. Larry Page and Sergey Brin

Company: Google
Job Title: Co-Founders

The two Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin are so often lumped together when discussing the company, that it comes as no surprise that they’d make the same salary as well. The pair met at Stanford University while working on their PhDs in Computer Science.

Larry Page and Sergey Brin ©Steve Jennings/Getty Images

After they created a search engine together that would later become Google, they stopped studying for their PhDs and committed full time to the development of the new company. Worth tens of billions of dollars each, the pair were named the fifth most powerful in the world by Forbes in 2009.

5. Edward Lampert

Company: Sears
Job Title: CEO

After taking one look at Fountainhead, the Sears CEO’s 288-foot yacht, it becomes rather obvious that Lampert is not hurting for money on a $1-a-year salary. Born into a wealthy family, Edward “Eddie” Lampert had his luck change when his father, a successful partner at a law firm, passed away while he was in high school.

Edward Lampert @chicagotribune / Twitter.com

Lampert developed a strong work ethic from this tragic event, juggling school and having to take on a job to support his family. He then studied economics at Yale and soon got involved in the business world, jumping from Wall Street to his current CEO role at Sears.

6. Steven J. Kean

Company: Kinder Morgan
Job Title: CEO

Steven J. Kean is the CEO of Kinder Morgan, a company whose name not everyone might not know but whose services everyone in North America surely uses. As an energy infrastructure company, Kinder Morgan has pipelines that connect to every last reserve of natural gas in America.

Steven Kean @KyleBakx / Twitter.com

Holding a law degree and with decades of experience working in energy, Kean is a formidable businessman who started at Kinder Morgan back in 2002. While his salary is only a dollar, he actually earns $400,000 per year as a shareholder in the company.

7. Michael Bloomberg

Company: Bloomberg L.P.
Job Title: CEO

Deemed the 20th-richest man in the world in 2020 by Forbes, Michael Bloomberg has had a meteoric rise to the top in both business and political realms. He served as the mayor of New York City from 2002-2013, after which he went back to assume the role of CEO of his company once more.

Michael Bloomberg ©LEE SNIDER PHOTO IMAGES / Shutterstock.com

Bloomberg hails from Boston and got his career started in the business world, working for an investment bank on Wall Street. Creating his own business to sell computer terminals, the company eventually grew to feature its own business news outlet, radio station, and so much more.

8. Arnold Schwarzenegger

Company: Politics
Job Title: Governor of California

Arnold Schwarzenegger is a Hollywood icon thanks to numerous hit movies, but back in 2003, his career took a turn. Arnie was elected the Governor of California, a role that he held right up until 2007. Despite being eligible for a salary of around $210,000, the actor didn’t take a dime.

Arnold Scwarzenegger ©Photo_Doc / Shutterstock.com

The star even told an Austrian publication that his stint in politics ended up costing him over $200 million due to expenses. He said he didn’t regret it, but that it also took a toll on his personal and family life.

9. Philip D. Reed

Company: General Electric
Job Title: CEO

As the CEO of General Electric before and after World War II, Philip D. Reed was one of the very first CEOs to create the $1 yearly salary concept. As a patriotic move during the war, he moved to volunteer with the government, but because they couldn’t accept unpaid volunteer work, he agreed to take the $1 as a formality.

Philip D. Reed ©University of Southern California / Gettyimages.com

While the rationale behind his pay cut was different than the reason why many CEOs do it today, he is partially responsible for creating this unique model, whether used for good or for tax evasion. Reed died in 1989 at the age of 89 years old.

10. Steve Jobs

Company: Apple
Job Title: Former CEO

The late Steve Jobs is responsible for revolutionizing the tech world in far-reaching ways that are hard to put into words. From creating the Apple computer to the iPod and ever-ubiquitous iPhone, his black turtleneck will forever be a symbol of world-changing innovation.

Steve Jobs ©Justin Sullivan / Gettyimages.com

As one of the most high-profile CEOs in his day, it was shocking to many that he would accept a salary of just a dollar a year. What many didn’t realize, however, was that he owned 5.5 million shares of his company, which amounted to a massive fortune.

11. Eric Schmidt

Company: Schmidt Futures
Job Title: Co-Founder

Businessman Eric Schmidt might not be a household name, but not for lack of high-profile positions. While he currently holds a role at Schmidt Futures, a philanthropic business focused on creating “talent networks” that he founded with his wife, his biggest business contributions were during his time as CEO of Google in the mid-2010s.

With an estimated net worth of $26.8 billion in 2021, Schmidt certainly did not feel an absence of a substantive yearly salary. He is currently on the boards of hospitals like the Mayo Clinic, world-class universities like Princeton, and major companies like Apple.

12. Richard Hayne

Company: Urban Outfitters
Job Title: CEO

Richard Hayne might look like your average middle-aged businessman, but he happens to be the CEO of one of the most popular hipster clothing brands, Urban Outfitters, frequented by teens all over the country and even the world.

Richard Hayne @NBCPhiladelphia / Twitter.com

The incredibly lucrative clothing company also contains the brands Anthropologie which is aimed at an older, wealthier audience, and Free People, which is also slightly more upscale than the original Urban Outfitters brand. The brand name Anthropologie is perhaps inspired by Hayne’s college major at Lehigh University.

13. Evan Spiegel

Company: Snapchat
Job Title: CEO

Once deemed the youngest billionaire in the world in 2015 Evan Spiegel is one of three Stanford University students responsible for creating Snapchat. Snapchat first started as a class project while at Stanford, which Spiegel then turned into such an enormous phenomenon that it required his full-time attention.

Evan Spiegel ©J.Emilio Flores / Gettyimages.com

The concept behind the app is that it allows users to send pictures and messages to their friends that disappear after opening them. It later expanded to include different functionalities like a map that uses location information to locate friends, and even a sort of modern news and entertainment site.

14. John F. Kennedy

Company: N/A
Job Title: President of the United States

John F. Kennedy went down as one of the greatest presidents in modern United States history, if not the entire country’s history, despite his role being so short-lived. And what few understand about his devotion to the country is that, unlike his predecessors, he donated 100% of his salary to charity.

John F. Kennedy ©National Archives / Gettyimages.com

While he came from a big wealthy American family, with a father investing heavily in business and entertainment and politics as well, this was still an unprecedented move that showed his true support for the American people.