Disney CEO Bob Iger made $31.6 million in 2023 in all forms of income. This was a significant increase from the year before. Iger earned $865,385 for his base pay in 2023. Stock awards added an extra $16.1 million, stock options awards added $10 million, performance based compensation added $2.1 million, and he also earned an additional $2.48 million in other compensation. All of this came from Disney’s annual proxy statement, which was filed on Tuesday.
Iger’s pay in 2023 was over double what he earned in 2022. In 2022, when he returned to The Walt Disney Company as CEO, he earned $15 million in total compensation. Initially Iger was Disney’s CEO from 2005 to 2020. He passed the torch to Bob Chapek, who was CEO from the spring of 2020 until November 2022 when he was fired and Bob Iger returned to the role of CEO. Even with Chapek leaving in 2022, he still earned $9.9 million in 2023 from Disney.
Since Iger has returned to The Walt Disney Company, he has been tasked with turning its finances around and also helping find his future successor. Disney has faced no shortage of challenges under Chapek and now Iger. This includes missed box office marks, declining linear TV viewership, and the challenge of making streaming profitable. Since Iger returned, he has restructured the company and added ads to the streaming service, raised subscription prices, and changed the focus of content to quality over quantity. At this point, these initiatives are still in their early phases and the results remain to be determined.
In November, Disney announced that it would continue to reduce costs. This comes after it already cut $5.5 billion in early 2023. It is now added an extra $2 billion in cuts during this rapidly changing business environment. Despite the challenges, Bob Iger has said that the company is seeing “progress” in its efforts, but there is still work to do.
What do you think of Bob Iger’s pay package for 2023? What do you think of where the company is going in the future? Share your thoughts and opinions in the comments below!
