Amazon is still paying Jeff Bezos an $80,000 yearly salary—but $1.6 million for travel and security

https://fortune.com/2026/04/10/amazon-jeff-bezos-80k-salary-billionaires-ceo-executive-chairman/

36 Comments

  1. ReasonableDig6414 on

    What top 20 company doesn’t do this for the Executive Chair of their Board that was also their founder? Seems like someone just wants to be angry by trying to point this out.

  2. TheInvisibleToast on

    ? Why does this concern the general public? 

    The only thing that matters is that we tax billionaires accordingly. Amazon should feel free to reward bezos however they see fit financially as long as it’s legal. 

  3. truecakesnake on

    How is this possibly related to technology. Yes billionaires bad. This is more of a political sub than anything lol, all the actual tech advancements get downvoted.

  4. WeakBlueberry5071 on

    His yacht probably can’t even leave Miami to the keys for 80k 😂 the littlest hobo yacht at that.

  5. So it becomes business expense instead of personal expenses. Man literally invented a bullshit role so he could spend company money like his own.

  6. iprocrastina on

    Transporting your chairman and keeping him from getting assassinated while traveling are generally considered business expenses, not compensation.

    Middle class workers get those benefits too if they need them. Companies reimburse workers for traveling expenses if travel is needed for the job. And if you have to travel somewhere sketchy companies will often hire bodyguards and drivers for you.

  7. Sad-Dirt-1660 on

    that’s… fine? travel and security means the money goes to the airlines and companies providing their services, not to his own pocket.

  8. He’s the Chairman of the Board of Directors, right?

    This isn’t at all an absurd accommodation for a company worth $2.4 trillion.

    Its shocking that he’s paid that little for being Chairman.

  9. dashcam4life on

    Might sound odd, but 1.6 million seems kinda low. I bet he spends plenty more on security.

  10. empathetical on

    So what is the issue here? He owns the company? I don’t understand what is trying to be said here?

  11. sewer_pickles on

    Amazon has a weird compensation model for most of its salaried employees. Everyone maxes out at the same base pay and then they add cash bonuses and stock on top to create your total compensation package. At most tech companies your total compensation is something like 85% base pay, 10% stock, 5% bonus.

    At Amazon it’s flipped and the bulk of your comp is base pay + bonus for the first two years and then the majority of your comp comes from stock in years 3-4. They will refresh your stock as part of the annual review process. This means that if you do a terrible job, and don’t receive additional stock, then your total compensation can dramatically drop. Though, they would likely fire you before that point.

    All that to say, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Bezos gets stock or other compensation that far exceeds the $80k base that’s being reported. It’s not only in line with how Amazon does compensation, but it also has significant tax benefits for Bezos.

  12. $1.6 million for a security detail alone is pretty low for a man of his wealth. I doubt that actually covers his security and travel 100%

  13. AvailableReporter484 on

    We have such a cool tax system that’s definitely not designed to be as convoluted and little dicked possible

  14. blakewantsa68 on

    I mean…. Steve Jobs only took $1 as a salary – the minimum to have him legally be an employee of the company, which he needed for other tax reasons.

    Executive stock based compensation has been a thing for a long time, and if you’re really thinking, long-term, spending the cash that you would otherwise have been compensated to do things at the company that makes it more profitable just makes you that much more money.

    There is a reckoning coming for all this, however. The tax accounting rules for stock based compensation are about to change, and that is gonna really make things rough for companies that rely on it.

  15. BrokenSmilePhoto on

    I feel like maybe instead of paying for security and travel, Daddy Warbucks here could pay for it himself. I’m sure he’ll write it off anyhow. And guess what, you can not lay off 3 people by doing this.

  16. I feel like the author of the article is missing the main point. Jeff Bezos doesn’t have to pay taxes on social security, Medicare, or unemployment when he makes money on stock sales or dividends (capital gains). He does have to pay that taxes on W2 salary. So why pay taxes if he doesn’t have to?

    That’s why the tax code has laws that prevent small business owners (S-corps) from doing this exact same thing… because laws are written to benefit billionaires.

    I think a more reasonable article title would be: “Jeff Bezos, the 3rd richest person in the world, only pays payroll taxes on $80k a year… and it’s legal!?”

  17. So let’s say we’re taking this at face value. What’s the capitalist message here?

    Work will never make you financially comfortable? You need to invest in start ups and ETFs or whatever?!

  18. heavy-minium on

    Let me call it out: it’s tax evasion. They all do the same shit, Trump does it to the maximum too, and actually far beyond what could be even called legal or a loophole.

    They have almost no income on paper, everything that finances their personal lifestyle is a business expense, deductible, causing “losses” for private spending to their companies in order to lower their tax burden even further. One of a thousands loopholes to make sure they contribute the least they can do back, and that the little they contribute back is done with maximum PR to uphold their image.

    This is why they can only get richer and you can only get poorer. Tax evasion is the main driver of wealth disparity, and the gap cannot be solved without addressing that issue. The U.S. is especially fucked now, tax evasion from the richest individuals has reached all-time-high.