‘Pandemic, Shmandemic’ Says Wall Street CEOs As They Get Huge Multimillion-Dollar Bonuses: Here’s How Much They’re Making

Have pity for poor Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon. His bonus was cut this year. Solomon ONLY earned about $17.5 million for 2020. His compensation was lowered by 36%, as “punishment for the bank’s admission last year that it broke U.S. laws in its dealings with an investment fund at the heart of a global corruption ring.”

Goldman previously “agreed to pay nearly $3 billion to government officials in four countries to end an investigation into work it performed for 1MDB, a Malaysian fund that prosecutors had alleged was used to pay bribes to politicians in Malaysia and the Middle East.”

Solomon’s 2020 pay would have been $10 million higher if it wasn’t for the pesky alleged fraud thing. He’s still doing okay, though. His total compensation package consisted of a “$2 million base salary, a $4.65 million cash bonus and a $10.85 million stock award that is tied to how well the bank performs over the next few years.”

James Gorman, CEO of Morgan Stanley, did pretty well for himself. He took home a “total of $33 million in 2020, a 22% increase from the previous year.” This makes Gorman the “highest-paid chief executive of a major U.S. bank,” according to Bloomberg.

His pay included “a base salary of $1.5 million, a cash bonus of roughly $7.9 million, deferred stock awards of roughly $7.9 million and a performance-based stock award of $15.75 million that’s tied to certain equity- and shareholder-return targets.”

JPMorgan Chase “kept [CEO] Jamie Dimon‘s total compensation unchanged at $31.5 million for his work in 2020.” His package includes “$25 million of restricted stock tied to performance, an annual base salary of $1.5 million and a $5 million cash bonus,” said a spokesperson for the investment bank.

Dimon’s pay was based upon “the firm’s strong performance in 2020 and over the long term, across four broad dimensions: business results; risk, controls and conduct; client/customer/stakeholder; and teamwork and leadership,” according to regulatory filings.

The compensation for the CEOs are not too shabby for one of the worst years in a generation.