The head of unprofitable data analytics company Palantir has become one of the highest-paid executives in history, raking in more than $1.1 billion in total compensation last year.
Peter Thiel-founded Palantir — which conducts secretive data-processing work for US government agencies and corporate clients like Morgan Stanley and Airbus — paid CEO Alex Karp $798 million in options, $296 million in restricted stock and $1.1 million in salary, according to the company’s 2020 annual proxy statement.
Karp’s stock-heavy compensation was supercharged by Palantir going public in September of last year with a valuation of nearly $22 billion. The pay represents a roughly ninety-fold increase from his $12.1 million compensation in 2019.
In the proxy statement, Palantir said its sky-high compensation helped to “attract, retain, and motivate our leadership team in a highly competitive technology talent market while simultaneously aligning executive interests with those of our stockholders.”
Palantir went public in September with a valuation of nearly $22 billion.Noam Galai/Getty Images
Karp’s 2020 pay makes him far-and-away the highest-paid CEO of the year, with nearly three times as much compensation as runner-up Tony Xu, who co-founded the also-unprofitable delivery app Doordash. Xu received shares of his company worth more than $400
