Although he only took $1 in salary, Apple CEO Steve Jobs was America’s highest-paid chief executive of 2006. Forbes reports that Jobs received $647 million in total compensation thanks to vested restricted stock.
The next four top-paid CEOs also earned most of their pay from exercised stock options—Ray Irani of Occidental Petroleum ($322 million), Barry Diller of IAC/Interactive Corp ($295 million), William P. Foley of Fidelity National Financial ($180 million), and Terry Semel of Yahoo! ($174 million).
Forbes said CEO pay in the U.S. was up a collective 38% last year, to $7.5 billion.