Costco CEO Makes 336 Times What His Workers Do

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Apr 2, 10:50AM EDT

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Costco CEO Makes 336 Times What His Workers Do — © jetcityimage / iStock Editorial via Getty Images

According to the Costco Wholesale Corp. (NASDAQ: COST | COST Price Prediction) proxy, in 2023, former CEO W. Craig Jelinek made 336 times more than the median pay of his workers. That median worker compensation was $50,202. His pay was $16,879,623. Costco has about 330,000 workers, which makes it among America’s largest companies based on that count. Costco has 871 locations worldwide.

Almost all of Jelinek’s pay was stock awards of $14,937,824. His base pay was a less spectacular $1,154,808. Jelinek got a raise in each of the two prior years. He made $9,905,070 in 2022 and $8,804,752 in 2021. Jelinek stepped down at the beginning of this year and was replaced as chief executive by Ron Vachris, the retailer’s former president and chief operating officer.

Costco had a mediocre year in 2023 financially. Revenue hit $237.7 billion, which was up from $222.7 billion in 2022. Net income rose from $5.8 billion in 2022 to $6.3 billion last year. (This is how much money Costco makes every minute.)

Costco’s stock did well in 2023. It opened the year at $483 and closed it at $656, an increase of 36%. Shares were last seen trading hands near $713. The consensus price target is above $780 and would be an all-time high.

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.