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Stellantis chief executive Carlos Tavares’s remuneration rose 56 per cent to €36.5mn in 2023, making him one of the industry’s highest paid bosses after a year when tough pay negotiations with US unions hit the company’s profitability.
Much of Tavares’s pay rise came from bonuses linked to long-term targets, and Stellantis, which owns brands including Peugeot, Fiat and Jeep, has been one of the industry’s most profitable carmakers in recent years.
But Tavares’s high pay has caused clashes with French unions and with shareholders in the past, including in 2022 when investors voted against his pay package at the company’s annual meeting, in a non-binding vote.
Last year’s package compares with total pay of €23.5mn Tavares received for 2022. In 2023, his fixed salary of €2mn remained unchanged and his variable pay of €11.5mn, linked to targets such as free cash flow, was €1.4mn lower than a year earlier.
But he also received a €10mn bonus linked to certain transformation targets at Stellantis, which like other carmakers is shifting into electric cars, software and technology. He was also given €13mn in long-term incentives.
Tavares’s pay threatens to cause another political row, on top of the pressure it faces from the Italian government to increase production in the country, a battle that has dragged in Stellantis’s chair John Elkann.
While the bosses of global carmakers are generally well paid, the levels can also depend on the countries they are based in.
While US car bosses tend to be paid more, figures tend to be lower in France and Japan.
Carlos Ghosn, who led Renault and Nissan before his 2018 arrest, had often complained he was paid less than the chief executives of US carmakers.
Ford and GM have yet to publish their 2023 annual reports, which will give details of their chiefs’ pay. Ford CEO Jim Farley was paid $20mn in 2022, while GM’s Mary Barra made nearly $29mn. In the same year, Tavares made €23mn.
Last year, the three biggest US carmakers — Ford, General Motors and Stellantis, which owns Chrysler — suffered strikes during wage negotiations with the United Auto Workers union.
The rising levels of chief executive pay at the three companies were one of the central arguments the union used in its negotiations, saying workers’ wages had failed to keep pace with rewards at boardroom level.
The strikes, which led to Stellantis agreeing a 25 per cent pay increase, dented the company’s profitability for the year. Although profits reached a record €18.6bn, the company’s margin fell from 13.4 to 12.8 per cent, it said earlier this month.
