Friday, Sep. 5, 2025
Did the CEO of a Colorado-based corporation earn nearly $7B in 2024?
Alexander Karp, CEO of the Colorado-based data firm Palantir, received about $6.8 billion in “compensation actually paid” in 2024, including salary and changes in stock value
In 2022, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission began requiring most publicly traded corporations to report the CAP for executives in addition to their total compensation — the more traditional method, factoring in salary and stock awards.
Under the classic method of reporting, Karp’s compensation was $4.6 million. His CAP factors in earnings from his current and potential stock holdings, which shot up in value after Palantir’s stock price surged 340% in 2024.
A study from Equilar and the New York Times found Karp is the highest paid CEO in the U.S. by CAP, with only one other executive — Broadcom CEO Hock Tan — topping out $1 billion. Measuring by total compensation, Karp doesn’t even appear in the top 100 highest paid executives in 2024.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Sources
- Palantir Technologies Schedule 14A United States Securities and Exchange Commission
- United States Securities and Exchange Commission Final rule: Pay Versus Performance
- Macrotrends Palantir Technologies – 5 year stock price history
- The New York Times The Rich Compensation for Being the CEO
- Equilar Equilar 100: CEO pay at the largest companies by revenue
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Fact briefs are bite-sized, well-sourced explanations that offer clear "yes" or "no" answers to questions, confusions, and unsupported claims circulating online. They rely on publicly available data and documents, often from the original source. Fact briefs are written and published by Gigafact contributor publications.
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