Discovery Inc. Chief Executive David Zaslav received total compensation valued at $246.6 million in 2021, including nearly $203 million in options grants, more than sextupling his compensation from the year before, the company said in a securities filing Monday.
Zaslav’s compensation package is the highest CEO pay reported by any S&P 500 company so far this year, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of data from securities filings provided by MyLogIQ LLC.
Zaslav’s salary was flat at $3 million. The increase in compensation stems largely from a massive grant of stock options on the eve of last year’s announcement Discovery’s DISCA, -0.46% plans to merge with AT&T Inc.’s T, -1.29% WarnerMedia.
Given the strike prices of the options granted to Zaslav, Discovery’s share price would have to rise considerably for those options to be in the money.
He also received a $4.4 million discretionary cash bonus, which Discovery said in a filing earlier this month was for his leadership through the COVID-19 pandemic, growing the company’s Discovery+ streaming service and his efforts last year to negotiate the merger with WarnerMedia.
After Zaslav, the next highest-paid CEO is Apple Inc.’s AAPL, -2.66% Tim Cook, who received total compensation of about $99 million in 2021, according to a securities filing from Apple.
An expanded version of this report appears on WSJ.com.
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