10 Highest Paid CEOs

Stephen Schwarzman — 702,440,573

Stephen Schwarzman the CEO of Blackstone Group a financial service company tops the list with over 700 million dollars in compensation in 2008.  The company says that the vast percentage of the 700 million comes from stocks from his IPO after he took the company public in 2007.

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Lawrence Ellison — 556,976,600

Lawrence Ellison the CEO of the database management giant Oracle Corporation, did fairly well for himself pulling in over 550 million dollars in 2008.  With a salary of only 1 dollar Ellion made his half a billion dollars from his stock option regardless of the fact Oracle stock dropped during the year.

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Ray Irani — 222,639,600

Ray Irani the CEO of Occidental Petroleum took home a cool 222 million in 2008.  Due to rising oil prices and a change in the company payment scheme Irani was able to make much more money then he had in the past with company working for Occidental Petroleum for over 20 years

John Hess — 159,566,940

John Hess a Harvard grad first got the job of CEO of Hess Corporation back in 1995.  His base salary was only 1,500,000 and with his bonus that he of course deserved of 3,500,000 all the rest came from stocks and other forms of compensation.

Michael Watford — 116,929,392

Michael Watford the 55 year old CEO of Ultra Petroleum Corporation banked a cool 116 million in 2008.  Mr. Watford has been CEO for over 10 years and like most of the other CEO’s on the list a large portion of his compensation came from stock 97 percent of it.

Aubrey McClendon — 114,286,867

Aubrey McClendon is the CEO, chairperson, and co-founder of Chesapeake Energy.  The 114 million he made in 2008 makes him the highest paid CEO of all the S&P 500 Companies.  Mr. McClendon also owns the NBA Team Oklahoma City Thunder

Bob Simpson – 103,485,972

Bob Simpson the founder and chairperson CEO of XTO Energy Incorporated.  Mr. Simpson has been CEO since 1994 and has his BS degree in Accounting from Baylor University

Mark Papa – 90,471,784

Mark Papa has been the CEO of EOG Resources for 11 years.  Unlike many of the other CEO’s on the list Mr. Papa stock’s only made up 80 percent of his compensation.  The now 62 year old received his MBA from University of Houston

Eugene Isenberg — 79,333,079

Eugene Isenberg has been the CEO of Nabors Industries Ltd. (natural gas driller) since 1987.  Mr. Isenberg is also a principle shareholder in Genimar Incorporated as well as President of the University of Massachusetts Amherst Foundation.

Michael Jeffries — 71,795,744

Micheal Jeffries is the CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch (one of the few non energy or oil companies on the list).  Mr. Jeffries is considered to have been the main creator of their new look following their bankruptcy in 1998.  Mr. Jeffries employment agrement is set to expire in 2014.