Cantillon has always marvelled at the amount of cash chief executives have handed to them.For all the talk of Elon Musk becoming a trillionaire with the SpaceX listing, there are thousands of chief executives earning what just a few years ago we would have called generational wealth – the sort of money you would have needed a family office to manage.Musk’s Tesla compensation – which includes the likes of shares and bonuses as well as basic salary – dwarfs that of the other 391 executives for which data was available, according to a Wall Street Journal report this week. His $158 billion (€139 billion) compares to $9.9 billion in total for the rest. Apart from Musk, seven other bosses saw their total remuneration top $100 million, according to most recent data. Notably, the data compares chief executive compensation to the median employee pay in their companies. Musk’s payout at Tesla compares to median staff earnings of just $62,786. For all the bad press the private equity industry gets, Blackstone boss Stephen Schwarzman’s $126 million packet at least compares more favourably to median pay of $275,000. Has the Irish building sector got themselves hooked on Government subsidies? Listen | 39:58Some notable Irish faces feature in the Journal’s data too. Tony Smurfit is ranked 223 on the list, with earnings of $16 million. The median salary for his Smurfit Westrock workers is $60,554. He is not far behind CRH’s Jim Mintern, who comes in at 197 with $18 million in total remuneration. In fairness to Mintern, while that number makes him one of the best-paid executives in the building materials industry, CRH has given a total return to shareholders of 37 per cent over the past year. Both men trail Adaire Fox-Martin and her package as chief executive of data centre firm Equinix. The former Google Ireland boss received total compensation of $23 million last year. And that was down 38 per cent compared to a year earlier. Of course, Flutter chief executive Peter Jackson would feature on this list, but his company is not a member of the S&P 500 index. Martina Cheung is not a household name in Irish business circles, but the University of Galway graduate has led financial information firm S&P Global since 2024. She comes in at 298th on the list, with earnings of $13 million.