Mary Barra’s $29.9 Million Payday Came In The Same Year GM Lost $7.9 Billion On EVs

  • Detroit lost tens of billions on EVs while its top executives took home raises.
  • GM booked a $7.9 billion EV write-down as Mary Barra’s pay climbed to $29.9M.
  • Ford rewrote its bonus rules to count hybrids before paying Jim Farley $27.5M.

Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis have all taken multi-billion-dollar hits tied to EV strategy shifts and related write-downs. With this in mind, you’d perhaps have expected to see the pay packages of company executives slashed for these costly missteps and investments. Think again.

First is General Motors. While it hasn’t pulled back from battery-electric vehicles to the same extent as Ford and Stellantis, it expects to take a roughly $7.9 billion hit related to its scaled-back EV spending. Despite this, regulatory filings show that chief executive Mary Barra earned a staggering $29.9 million last year, a 1.4 percent increase over the prior year.

Read: Barra’s Playing Both Sides On EVs, Just In Case The White House Changes

Barra, who has served as the CEO of GM for 12 years, has a base salary of $2.1 million, and her stock awards jumped 11 percent to $21.6 million. Interestingly, her non-equity incentive plan compensation dropped 26 percent to around $5 million, so she could have earned even more.

Shockingly, Barra wasn’t actually GM’s highest-paid executive last year, as chief product officer Sterling Anderson received a compensation package valued at $40.3 million. Most of this came from a lucrative hiring bonus GM paid him after poaching him from Aurora Innovation, the self-driving technology startup he co-founded. According to the Wall Street Journal, GM President Mark Reuss received $19.3 million, a 4.6 percent rise, and the salary of chief financial officer Paul Jacobson jumped 5.5 percent to $13.8 million.

Farley Cashes In

Mary Barra’s $29.9 Million Payday Came In The Same Year GM Lost $7.9 Billion On EVs

Then there’s Ford. The car manufacturer announced $19.5 billion in write-offs last year as it overhauls its EV strategy. At the same time, it conveniently changed bonus payouts, once restricted to EV sales performance, to now include all electrified vehicles, including hybrids. As a result, Ford exceeded its electrified sales targets, and CEO Jim Farley’s pay rose 11 percent to $27.5 million, even as the company reported an $8.2 billion loss, its worst since 2008.

According to the WSJ, a Ford spokesperson said Farley’s pay reflects overall performance, citing a 42 percent total shareholder return, including dividends, which beat the market and its automaker peers, along with record revenue.

The spokesperson added that Ford did not factor out unexpected costs such as tariffs when calculating bonuses, and said the company recognizes “the importance of a broader portfolio of electrified powertrains such as hybrid vehicles.”

As for Stellantis, chief executive Antonio Filosa earned $6.37 million in total compensation last year, although he was actually only CEO for the second half of the year. Stellantis took a $26.2 billion hit for its over-investments in electric vehicles.

Mary Barra’s $29.9 Million Payday Came In The Same Year GM Lost $7.9 Billion On EVs

The Auto World

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