The year 2024 was a good one for the people who ran some of the country’s biggest companies. CEO pay set another record last year, according to a new study in The Wall Street Journal, with half of the chief executives who made the newspaper’s list of the highest paid CEOs earning $17.1 million or more, up more than 8% from $15.8 million the year prior.

Rick Smith, cofounder of Axon Enterprise, the maker of Taser stun guns, topped the list with a pay package of $165 million (entirely in company stock). Elon Musk earned the least, once again taking home $0 in salary from Tesla. (His compensation is instead structured around stock options that vest based on the company’s performance.)

The widening pay gap between CEOs and their employees is a growing concern. For comparison, the average ann

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