Salesforce’s first-quarter earnings report on Wednesday beat estimates, with revenue up 8% year-over-year to $9.83 billion. Earlier this week, the company also announced a deal to buy data management company Informatica for $8 billion, its biggest acquisition since it purchased Slack for $27.1 billion in 2021.
“Sometimes you have a quarter when everything is going right for you,” said Salesforce CEO and Board Chair Marc Benioff, 60, in an earnings call on Wednesday, per The Wall Street Journal.
According to Salesforce’s 2025 proxy statement, released in April, Benioff made over $55 million in the 2025 fiscal year, which ran from Feb. 1, 2024, to Jan. 31, 2025. His base salary was $1.55 million, and his bonus was $2,500, both unchanged from 2024. His stock awards increased by about $8 million, and his option awards by over $3 million from 2024. His $55 million compensation included over $4 million in personal security costs and over half a million dollars in aircraft usage.
Meanwhile, Salesforce’s median employee took home a total compensation of $178,949 in fiscal year 2025. Benioff made approximately 308 times more than the typical Salesforce employee.
In the 2024 fiscal year, Salesforce’s median employee received a salary of $164,985. That year, Benioff made $39.6 million, or 240 times more than the median.
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff. Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Salesforce’s median salary is lower than Google, where a mid-level employee made $331,894 in 2024, and Nvidia, where a typical employee made $301,233.
Meanwhile, Salesforce could be slowing down hiring in certain departments and accelerating hiring in others as it attempts to internally maximize its use of AI tools. The company’s chief financial and operations officer, Robin Washington, said on a call with analysts on Wednesday that Salesforce has downsized “some” of its hiring needs thanks to AI. It’s also hiring fewer customer service representatives and software engineers as its current staff use AI for greater productivity, but is growing its sales team by 22% this year.
Related: Here’s How Much 8 CEOs Made in 2024, From JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon to Disney’s Bob Iger
CEO Pay Is Rising
A study released on Thursday by the Associated Press found that CEO pay increased by nearly 10% in 2024 due to higher profits and stock prices. The study, which was based on proxy statements filed with federal regulators by companies in the S&P 500, examined the pay of 344 executives. It found that the median pay package of CEOs in 2024 was $17.1 million, up from $16.3 million in 2023.
The highest-earning CEO on the list was Patrick W. Smith, the CEO of taser-making company Axon, who took home $164.5 million. Other top-earning executives included General Electric’s H. Lawrence Culp, Jr. ($87.4 million), Apple’s Tim Cook ($74.6 million), and Netflix’s Theodore A. Sarandos ($61.9 million). Most of those pay packages were comprised of stock or options awards.
The study also found that the typical employee at an S&P 500 company earned $85,419 in 2024, a 1.7% year-over-year increase.
Salesforce’s first-quarter earnings report on Wednesday beat estimates, with revenue up 8% year-over-year to $9.83 billion. Earlier this week, the company also announced a deal to buy data management company Informatica for $8 billion, its biggest acquisition since it purchased Slack for $27.1 billion in 2021.
“Sometimes you have a quarter when everything is going right for you,” said Salesforce CEO and Board Chair Marc Benioff, 60, in an earnings call on Wednesday, per The Wall Street Journal.
According to Salesforce’s 2025 proxy statement, released in April, Benioff made over $55 million in the 2025 fiscal year, which ran from Feb. 1, 2024, to Jan. 31, 2025. His base salary was $1.55 million, and his bonus was $2,500, both unchanged from 2024. His stock awards increased by about $8 million, and his option awards by over $3 million from 2024. His $55 million compensation included over $4 million in personal security costs and over half a million dollars in aircraft usage.
The rest of this article is locked.
Join Entrepreneur+ today for access.
