Netflix Co-CEOs Set to Earn More Than $34M in 2021

Netflix co-CEOs Reed Hastings and Ted Sarandos will see their 2021 compensation unchanged from 2020.

The executives are expected to earn $34,650,000 each next year, according to a regulatory filing that was published Dec. 28. Hastings’ pay is made up of $34 million in stock options and $650,000 in base salary, while Sarandos will take a $20 million base salary and $14,650,000 in stock options.

Those numbers are the same as what the company said Hastings and Sarandos would earn in 2020. With so much of their executive compensation locked up in stock options, the final compensation for the company’s top executives can vary widely. The company typically reveals the previous year’s compensation for its senior executives in its proxy filing in April. In April 2020, Netflix disclosed that Hastings earned $38.6 million in fiscal 2019, and Sarandos earned $34.7 million.

This will be the first full year that Sarandos will serve as a co-CEO alongside Netflix founder Hastings. The chief content officer was upped to the role over the summer.

CFO Spencer Neumann, whose hiring from Activision in late 2019 is now the subject of a lawsuit, is set to make $11,550,000 in 2021, comprised of $6 million in salary and $5,550,000 in stock options. Chief product officer Greg Peters will earn $12 million in salary and $6.9 million in stock options, while chief legal officer and secretary David Hyman will earn a $4.725 million salary and the same amount in stock options.

Netflix, which has 197 million subscribers, has seen its stock buoyed this year amid the global pandemic as it benefits from the continued shift to streaming. Shares are up over 63 percent for the year.

Alex Weprin contributed to this report.

Related Stories

Related Story

Netflix Sued by Activision for Poaching CFO