Surging stock made Palantir’s Alex Karp $6.8 billion richer last year, making him one of the best-paid CEOs

• Palantir Cofounder and CEO Alex Karp has not received stock from the company since it went public, But his existing handles have flown in recent years, making him one of the best paid CEOs in the country, according to a new calculation called “compensation really pays.”

Investors waiting for revenues from defense contractor Palatir on Monday have a Banner year, with the technology company that sees its stock stock. But few have done better than COOO and CEO Alex Karp, who saw a multibillion-dollar jump on his net worth last year with the strength of his Palantir sharing, which rose 340% in 2024.

Karp, who has been with the company since he was cofounded, has been $ 6.8 billion rich in paper, according to Palantir's proxy filing.

The figure of that dollar appears in a column titled “Compensation Truly Paying to the CEO,” which, Palatir says in a footnote, “does not represent the compensation that actually paid, acquired or received him in the appropriate year.”

Instead, it represents a massive increase in the value of stock grants and stock options currently held by the carp.

Payment under the “really paid” dwarfs calculated the $ 4.6 million carp received last year under a more common CEO pay accounting.

With those policies, $ 4.6 million derives from $ 1.1 million cash with the rest that represents the value of security and travel benefits.

Since the “Compensation Real Paid” column began to appear in the SEC filings two years ago, it created a new class of ultra-billionaires, the New York Times mentioned Last yearKarp second on the list of the best paid CEOs of the newer metric.

“Yes, it's real money, but it's not liquid cash right away,” said Rohan Williamson, Professor of Finance at Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business.

“It's not like he came home and they said, here's the check for $ 6.8 billion. But that's the value,” he said.

A 10-year wait

As a bit typical for a tech founder, Karp received most of his stock payments. Palatir went public in 2020 with Karp Holding 141 million stock options and 39,000 restrained stock units, worth $ 1.1 billion at that time. Notably, Karp has not received new grants or stock options ever since.

“Effectively, the huge pay package this year received – and it was huge – was in 2020,” said Egor Matveyev, senior financial lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management. “They are designed as very long stock awards with a very long vesting period … Everything he realizes is back to the original give.”

In an unusual twist, Karp had a very long vesting period – 10 years before he could enjoy the fullness of his shares. A more common schedule for performance -based stock awards is three years, according to Eric Hoffmann, vice president and chief data official in Farient Advisors.

“They usually try to keep him there in place until he approaches the age of retirement,” Hoffmann said Fate.

Pay now, pay later

At this time given, Karp's award was quite generous. “I'm going to say it's at a higher end, when it comes to a company of this size,” Matveyev said, noting that the median CEO was making $ 20 million a year; Karp's $ 1.1 billion over a decade works over $ 100 million annually.

But since then, the price of Palantir stock has increased by a factor of 12 – and so is the value of Karp's handling. That shows a potential downside of “Moonshot” packages of compensation ..

“If the company is doing well, the realized value can be huge,” Matveyev said. “We just give a lot of value.”

A Palantir spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

There are many Comp professionals compared to Karp's wolf compensation for Elon Musk's deal with Tesla, who at some point costs $ 56 billion and depends on his meeting some benchmarks. (So ​​far, the pay deal is declined Twice by Delaware Court of Chancery.)

“In the wider space of the company [this pay structure] is not uncommon; In the tech space, no, “Georgetown's Williamson said.” The view was, 'I took a lot of danger, I bought the shares in advance, I did all the work, it was built in my brain, it was fast, I deserved it. And that's debatable, but that's the structure. “

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com