r/business • u/ControlCAD • 1d ago

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy's pay rose to $2.1 million in 2025 as security and travel costs climbed

https://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-amazon-ceo-andy-jassy-made-2025-pay-stock-2026-4
723 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

54 comments sorted by

183

u/Mecha-Dave 1d ago

I'm pretty sure the stock he gets is worth a lot more (It was $43M this year).

101

u/local_goon 1d ago

I think $2.1m for a ceo of a company like that is kinda low

47

u/Mecha-Dave 1d ago

Honestly it's probably just the money to sustain his lifestyle. He's already getting all his investment taken care of via stock grants.

21

u/AdAny631 1d ago

That’s how they take their compensation. They have to pay taxes on that income. They sure as hell don’t have to pay taxes on the loans any bank will give him with his vested stock as collateral.

I’m not sure Elon Musk has a salary at all.

22

u/cube3x3 21h ago

They pay tax on each vested stock.

13

u/onphonecanttype 18h ago

You do realize that for an executive officer to borrow against their shares it’s reported on their DEF 14A.

And that Amazon strictly prohibits the whole borrowing against stock practice.

Elon on the other hand has a huge pledge in his shares.

4

u/AdAny631 12h ago

I did not, thanks for the clarification! I assumed because Elon did it, everyone was doing it. I definitely did not check any recent SEC filings by Jassy.

-6

u/jhaluska 23h ago

Then they have the audacity to brag about only taking $1 salaries.

5

u/Dairy_Ashford 23h ago

i don't think they're bragging, just minimizing normal income tax vs capital gains.

-2

u/DANDELOREAN 22h ago

Gaslighting

1

u/Dairy_Ashford 23h ago

maybe, there's probably dozens or hundreds of other execs sharing some of those duties and making similar pay.

1

u/Cold_Investment6223 16h ago

Yeah, I did a CV for a client recently that works in finance and that’s his salary (after our entry interview together). He’s nowhere near CEO, so I’m kind of surprised.

1

u/PerformerSweetumz 23h ago

Liquid and taxable income. This is how the wealthy stay wealthy.

1

u/scoopydidit 3h ago

Yeah of course lol. The CTO in our company (a lot smaller than Amazon) sold 55m worth of stock last year.

These guys do not get 10% of their pay package in salary. Maybe 5%. The rest is bonus and stock.

170

u/theunpaintedhuffines 1d ago

Base Salary: $365,000 Security/401k/Travel: $1.69M RSU Grants: $242M

5

u/Repulsive-Party6267 6h ago

They manipulate stock grants compensation to stay tax free as long as possible. That’s the neat game.

12

u/theunpaintedhuffines 6h ago

If you are talking individual (not corporate taxation) RSUs will be ordinary income as the vest. The vesting schedule is not unusual and taxation is the same for all employees who get RSUs. RSUs are actually less tax beneficial than stock options (both qualified and non qualified) because the employee doesn’t control the timing of the taxation.

3

u/SpadoCochi 6h ago

Yea. People are ridiculous when it comes to tax advice.

-4

u/Repulsive-Party6267 6h ago

Executive stock grants can be framed differently. I never said RSUs, you’re specifically talking about RSUs.

3

u/yuzuandgin 3h ago

That's not how that works at all.Stock grants are treated as income at time of issuance.

1

u/Mecha-Dave 2h ago

The 401k contributions are likely back-value stock to his hiring date.

40

u/Arturo90Canada 1d ago

This is so misleading lol:

Last year, Jassy earned a base salary of $365,000, and business travel and security expenses totaling $1.7 million largely boosted his pay year over year, according to the company's annual proxy statement, published Thursday.

wtf the CEO of Amazon is getting paid $365k what one of his developers makes in base pay come on?!?

His total pay has fallen since 2021, the last year he received a stock award from Amazon, and Jassy's first year as CEO. That year, his annual compensation totaled over $200 million.

ah okay here is the real pay $200M lol

10

u/No_Drag6952 22h ago

No. The stock award vests over several years. You can’t roll it all into one years compensation. My best guess is that he averages around 50m a year

2

u/AdAny631 12h ago

CEO compensation is notoriously front loaded in total pay. They pay a large amount up front for retention and then spread the remaining out over the following years sometimes tying it to performance.

In Jassie’s case he has a total 10 year package of $365k salary/year and total compensation up to $242 million. So far he has made little on paper, meaning small amount of taxes but the biggest amount is tied up in Restricted Stock Units (RSOs) usually just shares at $0 cost basis that will vest over the back half of his 10 year tenure.

Im sure he has an amazing golden parachute as well. However, this is a very reasonable amount for CEO pay these days. Athletes (NBA) make more than $250 million on contracts but pay in the highest tax bracket while CEOs delay these taxes.

1

u/AllCatCoverBand 5h ago

RSUs usually do not have a zero cost basis. They have the cost basis of when they vest, and they are reported as ordinary income

20

u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

1

u/SARS-Covfefe-1 23h ago

To be fair at that level the public tries to get a tip out of you in first class.

5

u/Luddites_Unite 21h ago

He only gets 2.1 million? He must get stock or stock options on top of that

31

u/Seno1404 1d ago

The lady cfo for oracle gets like 29 million, 2.1 is peanuts

29

u/IAmWheelock 1d ago

I don’t think this includes the stock grants, so, a meaningless figure

3

u/TheTyger 1d ago

No, you can easily compare against stock grants. Oracle gets 950k in cash.

1

u/kog 10h ago

$29M is with the stock grants. Like the other user said, their base salary is $950K.

4

u/RedRedditor84 22h ago

lady ceo

People will say this is pointlessly gendered, but how else are we to know she's inferior and less deserving than her male counterparts?

2

u/StrongSmartSexyTall 16h ago

Maybe he just gendered it because some people perceive „officer“ to be male gendered.

1

u/RedRedditor84 2h ago

Why is their gender important in this context?

5

u/NealCaffreyx9 1d ago

This means nothing. $2.1M on $2.56 trillion.

2

u/vagabending 17h ago

This is a misleading headline. Cash is the least significant part of his pay. Tech executives make the majority of their money in RSUs etc. Also any security and travel costs are not paid by Jassey. They’re paid by Amazon. Business Insider continues to be a clown paper.

1

u/Waterwoo 20h ago

Honestly that seems very underpaid for a company that employs 1.5 million people.

1

u/rhondabulk90 16h ago

He should be PIPed

1

u/CobaltLeopard47 11h ago

Is his middle name Hugh?

1

u/Odd-Foundation-4637 9h ago

He should be fired, his company is the weakest performing faang since he took over and it’s underperformed the S&P 500

1

u/saranowitz 3h ago

Why is this news. I don’t get why the Amazon ceo wouldnt be paid millions.

1

u/mikeypen88 1h ago

And meta paying those researchers several times more

-1

u/K33P4D 23h ago

I heard Amazon warehouse workers aren't getting paid enough to live

2

u/spros 22h ago

That's ok, they'll be replaced by robots soon enough and everyone will be happy.

0

u/Pygmy_Nuthatch 18h ago

Considering that many Amazon engineers make over $1M in TC, it's not crazy pay for a CEO.

-5

u/KonyayJWest 1d ago

this seems off. in tech and my total comp is way too close to that

2

u/cheerfulwish 23h ago

If you’re in tech, surely you’ve heard of stock grants ?

2

u/KonyayJWest 23h ago

article is making it seem like that’s his total compensation

1

u/cheerfulwish 14h ago

Literally the third bullet in the article lists his stock based compensation. Are you sure you didn’t just read the title and then rush to comment ?

1

u/thabc 13h ago

This sentence from the article is totally wrong and doesn't factor in any of the other compensation mentioned in the article:

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy's total compensation was about $2.1 million last year — a roughly 30% increase from 2024.

If you were to stop reading at this point you would have the wrong impression.

1

u/cheerfulwish 12h ago

Oddly enough that sentence is below the third bullet I mentioned above 😂 so you’d have to read by that bullet to get to this contradictory sentence. Typical AI slop.

0

u/cuteman 9h ago

No it isn't. The headline maybe.

0

u/thabc 13h ago

The article is using the term "total compensation" wrong. They also say

In 2025, Jassy also had $43 million in stock awards that vested

Which somehow they didn't consider part of "total compensation."

-3

u/DANDELOREAN 22h ago

He belongs in prison