Universal Music Group chairman/CEO Lucian Grainge topped Billboard’s list of best-paid music executives for the third time in four years — but just barely.
In 2024, Grainge was paid $39.6 million, about $2.5 million more than SiriusXM CEO Jennifer Witz, who leaped to No. 2 with earnings of $37.1 million thanks to stock and option awards tied to a new employment contract that boosted her total earnings fivefold over the previous two years. Billboard expanded this year’s list, which includes only named executive officers from publicly traded companies, from 10 to 20.
Grainge’s 2024 earnings were low compared with the previous three years — although his pay for two of those years was based on extraordinary circumstances. In 2021, Grainge’s $258.1 million worth of bonuses — all paid by former parent company Vivendi — pushed his total earnings to $308.2 million. The following year, his earnings returned to a more normal $49.7 million before surging to $150.3 million in 2023, due mainly to a $100 million “transition award” that moved him from all-cash compensation to a mix of cash and equity that’s typical for public company executives.
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Witz, the best-paid of the three women on the list, leapfrogged other executives on the 2024 ranking thanks to a boost from stock options worth $16.5 million that will vest in equal parts over three years. She was also given $16.2 million in stock awards (both stock units based on performance and restricted units that vest over time), nonequity plan compensation of $2.1 million and other compensation of $258,000.
Witz is consistently one of music’s best-paid executives despite SiriusXM’s bumpy road since she became CEO in 2021. Facing stiff competition from streaming services and slowing growth in satellite subscribers, the company laid off staff in 2023 and 2024 as revenue and self-pay subscribers dropped in both years. Losing ground cost Witz and other SiriusXM executives. In 2024, SiriusXM missed the minimum thresholds for two of the three annual bonus performance metrics, according to the company’s latest proxy statement. In total, executives met 43% of their target annual bonuses, and the compensation committee gave Witz just 35% of her annual bonus.
The money that executives actually pocket greatly depends on the performance of their companies’ stock price, and Witz’s latest contract is no different. The options she received in 2024 are currently “out of the money,” or below their exercise price. Her stock options have a $51.40 exercise price, but SiriusXM’s share price has fallen to $20.90 (as of Aug. 12), meaning it needs to gain approximately 150% for Witz’s options to pay off.
SiriusXM chief content officer Scott Greenstein could do far better with his stock options and performance-related stock awards. The No. 5 executive on the list with total pay of $21.8 million, Greenstein received stock options worth $8.3 million that carry a $27.40 exercise price, meaning SiriusXM shares need to increase just 31% for his options to have value. He was also given $10.4 million in stock awards.
Of the top 20 executives, 11 were paid over $12 million (the same as in 2023) while the No. 20 position was paid $5.9 million. (It was $4.4 million a year earlier.)
Collectively, compensation for the top 20 was $312 million, down 15% from 2023. That decline can be attributed to the outsize effect of Grainge’s 2023 earnings. Nos. 2 through 19 fared better, on average, in 2024 than in 2023. Looking at the median pay — the average of Nos. 10 and 11 — gives a better sense of the increased earnings power of the other executives. From 2023 to 2024, median earnings increased from $10 million to $15.6 million, a 28% rise.
Executives’ bump in pay mirrored the increase in the broader market. A study of CEO pay for S&P 500 companies by Equilar, a data research firm, found that the median value rose 9.7% from 2023, to $17.1 million. The annual study, in collaboration with the Associated Press, tracks trends in the compensation packages of S&P 500 CEOs that had served in their roles for at least two years. In the companies tracked, stock awards rose 14.7% to $10.3 million and accounted for 71.6% of the median pay package. The value of perks rose 21.5%, which Equilar attributes to an increase in security measures — which some companies classify as a perk rather than a business expense — following the 2024 murder of UnitedHealthCare CEO Brian Thompson.
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The list’s only other company with declining revenue, iHeartMedia, is represented by two executives: CEO Bob Pittman at No. 10, with $12.9 million, and CFO/COO Rich Bressler at No. 11, with $12.6 million. Institutional Shareholder Services, a firm that provides recommendations to investors on shareholder voting matters, recommended that iHeartMedia shareholders vote against executive compensation. Focusing on Pittman’s $12.9 million compensation, ISS identified a “misalignment” between iHeartMedia’s three-year performance ranking (the company fell into the bottom quartile on multiple measures) and Pittman’s above-average pay relative to his peers.
IHeartMedia’s executive compensation was nonetheless approved by shareholders, albeit a relatively low 73%. In 2025, the average approval rate was 90.6%, and 73% of companies in the Russell 3000, an index of the 3,000 largest public companies in the United States, received 90% or greater shareholder approval for say on pay votes, according to Semler Brossy, an executive compensation consulting firm.
At No. 3, Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino led three Live Nation executives on the list. Rapino, who topped the list in 2022 thanks to a huge post-COVID-19 bonus, earned $33 million. General counsel Michael Rowles was No. 12, with $7.5 million, and CFO Joe Berchtold was No. 13, with $6.4 million.
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James Dolan took the No. 4 position, earning a total of $28.2 million as CEO of both Sphere Entertainment and MSG Entertainment. Dolan, who ranked second on Billboard’s 2023 executive compensation list, would have earned more in a normal year. Because Sphere Entertainment changed from a fiscal year (ending June 30) to a calendar reporting year, he was paid for a shortened, six-month transition period ending Dec. 31, 2024. As a result, Dolan’s Sphere transitional period earnings of $18 million were far below his previous annual earnings of $27.4 million.
Warner Music Group has the most executives on the expanded list, with five. CEO Robert Kyncl is No. 7, at $18.6 million, and Max Lousada, the former CEO of recorded music, is No. 8, at $18.1 million. Warner Chappell Music co-chair/CEO Guy Moot is No. 15, at $6.1 million. Former WMG CFO Bryan Castellani is No. 18, at $5.8 million. WCM co-chair/COO Carianne Marshall is No. 19, at $5.5 million.
Spotify has four names, including two not on previous lists, in the top 20. Gustav Söderström, co-president/chief product and technology officer, was No. 6, at $18.7 million. Co-president/chief business officer Alex Norström was No. 9, at $16.6 million. The two Spotify executives new to the list: Chief public affairs officer Dustee Jenkins was No. 14 at $6.3 million and CFO Christian Luiga was No. 16 at $6 million.
A notable name missing is Spotify CEO Daniek Ek, who does not earn a salary or receive bonuses and therefore has not appeared on Billboard’s list of top music industry earners. As one of Spotify’s single largest shareholders, however, Ek has an immense source of income. In 2024, Ek sold Spotify shares with a market value of approximately $375 million, according to Billboard‘s tally of Spotify’s SEC disclosures.
