Goldman Sachs quietly crowned CEO David Solomon the early 2025 pay leader among Fortune 500 companies with a double-digit percentage raise that puts him above both JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon and Disney’s Bob Iger.
While not all Fortune 500 companies have released their executive compensation for 2025, banking CEOs like Solomon and Dimon are among the early winners. Still the most eye-popping pay drop may belong to Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol, whose 2025 compensation plummeted after he received $96 million in 2024 in front-loaded compensation for four months of work.
The double-digit Wall Street pay increases come as the six biggest U.S. banks, including Goldman and JPMorgan, brought in $157 billion in combined profits, an 8% increase that marked the industry’s best year since the pandemic, The Wall Street Journal reported.
CEO pay among some of the biggest companies in the U.S. increased steadily between 2010 and 2023, according to a study by Pay Governance, an independent consulting firm that advises compensation committees. Yet, in 2024, CEO pay among S&P 500 companies moderated, increasing just 5% compared to 14% in 2023. Still, the median total compensation, including base salary, bonuses, and long-term incentives, for S&P 500 CEOs stood at $17 million as of 2024.
Here is how the salaries for Fortune 500 CEOs stood last year based on currently available data.
The top-paid Fortune 500 CEO: David Solomon
Goldman boosted Solomon’s 2025 compensation to $47 million, a 21% increase from the $39 million package he received in 2024. The executive’s pay consisted of a $2 million base salary and another $45 million in variable compensation, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Solomon’s variable pay includes $10.1 million in cash, $31.5 million in stock tied to performance, and $3.4 million received via a carried interest program.
While lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have criticized carried interest programs as a strategy to evade higher taxes, they have become more popular with banks and asset managers after having been standard practice in private equity and venture capital for years. Carried interest is generally taxed at the capital gains rate, which is usually taxed at a 20% maximum, rather than the income tax rate which maxes out at 37%.
Goldman last year announced its carried interest program. Under the structure, Solomon’s compensation is partly tied to the long-term performance of certain alternative investments managed by the firm.
At $47 million, Solomon’s pay leapfrogged that of Dimon after they were paid the same in 2024. Dimon, who has served for more than a decade longer as CEO of JPMorgan than Solomon at Goldman, has long been the default benchmark for top-tier banking CEO pay.
Jamie Dimon: Big raise, but not the biggest
JPMorgan upped CEO Dimon’s pay by just over 10% to $43 million for 2025, putting him among the top-paid CEOs on Wall Street.
The long-time CEO’s compensation was comprised of a $1.5 million base salary, along with a variable incentive compensation of $41.5 million, according to an SEC filing. As part of the variable compensation, Dimon was awarded $5 million in cash, while the majority of his compensation ($36.5 million) was tied to performance-linked shares called performance share units (PSUs).
JPMorgan previously increased Dimon’s 2024 pay to $39 million, about an 8.3% rise from $36 million in 2023, after the bank posted record profits.
While Dimon’s compensation is staggering, it came in notably lower than Solomon’s $47 million, despite him having spent years as the industry’s most prominent and, often, best-compensated CEO.
While Dimon has served as JPMorgan’s chief executive since 2006, he has often shied away from questions about when he will step down. While he changed his tone in 2024, saying succession plans were “well on the way,” he reverted back to his oft-repeated response that his retirement is five years away during a U.S. Chamber of Commerce event earlier this month.
Bob Iger: Disney’s succession backdrop
Disney CEO Bob Iger’s 2025 compensation rose 11.5% to $45.8 million, placing him just behind Solomon and ahead of Dimon, according to a filing with the SEC. While Iger still received a double-digit percentage pay increase, his pay previously jumped about 30% between 2023 and 2024, according to the filing.
Iger’s pay consisted of a $1 million base salary, with variable compensation accounting for most of his massive paycheck. His stock awards tied to performance accounted for about $21 million while option awards were $14 million. A non-equity incentive plan worth $7.25 million comprised the rest of his variable compensation. Iger also received $2.6 million in “other compensation,” which, among other things, included Iger’s personal air travel on the corporate jet, as well as security costs.
Iger’s pay increase comes as Disney aims to find his successor. The Disney boss is serving in his second stint as CEO after having replaced former CEO Bob Chapek in 2022. The company said in its 2026 proxy statement it plans to announce the appointment of Iger’s successor in 2026.
Starbucks CEO’s pay drop
After securing one of the largest pay packages in corporate America following his jump to Starbucks after serving as CEO of Chipotle, Niccol’s compensation fell back to Earth in 2025.
Niccol earned about $31 million in 2025, down from $96 million in 2024, when the company granted him a large stock award of more than $90 million as part of the package to lure him into the job.
A July study by the AFL-CIO found that, thanks to his previous huge pay package, Niccol made around 6,666 times more than a median Starbucks employee’s salary.
Niccol’s $31 million compensation was comprised of a $1.6 million base salary, along with a $5 million bonus, $19.8 million in stock awards, $1.9 million from a non-equity incentive plan, and $2.5 million from “other compensation,” which among other items included $371,536 worth of “housing expenses” and $1.14 million in security expenses for Niccol, according to a filing with the SEC.
