The public recognition that CEOs are overpaid continues to grow. In November 2019 Stanford University published a survey of American views on Pay for Performance. The survey found “Eighty-six percent of respondents believe the CEOs of large, public U.S. companies are overpaid; only 14 do not.” This number is a 3 percent increase from 83 percent in 2016, when Stanford found many respondents tremendously under-estimated the actual level of CEO pay, but still considered CEO pay excessive on the less-informed grounds of their estimates.

An analysis by The Wall Street Journal in May 2019 found that in the prior year median CEO pay rose to $12.4 million among the S&P 500 companies, up 6.6 percent from 2017.

Who are the most overpaid CEOs?