Buffett’s Berkshire successor set to earn one of top salaries for an S&P 500 CEO

Greg Abel stepped in as Berkshire Hathaway’s chief executive on Jan. 1 following Buffett’s retirement. A Tuesday regulatory filing reporting Abel’s 2026 salary didn’t disclose any other pay or perks he might receive. Berkshire has historically not included stock awards in its executive-pay plans, and in a March security filing said that, under a board policy, “Berkshire never intends to use Berkshire stock in compensating employees."

Most large U.S. companies haven’t yet reported CEO pay figures for 2025, much less 2026. But according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of proxy data from MyLogIQ, Abel’s 2026 salary would be the highest a chief executive running a current S&P 500 company has earned in any single year between 2010 and 2024.

Including stock and options, as well as pension gains and perks, median CEO pay in the S&P 500 was just over $16 million in 2024, with median salary of $1.2 million and median total cash pay of $3.5 million. Most of the top 100 best-paid executives received more than $25 million, when stock and other noncash awards are added, MyLogIQ data show.

Abel’s hefty year-one salary is a departure from how Buffett himself was paid: $100,000 a year, plus the cost of personal security. But Berkshire isn’t the passion project of a 95-year-old investing legend anymore. It is more of a regular company now.

Considering that Abel is now running one of the 10 biggest companies in the S&P 500, “one would expect his compensation to be commensurate with that level of CEOs," said Bill Stone, chief investment officer at Glenview Trust in Louisville, Ky., which holds Berkshire shares.

Abel made just over $21 million in 2024, the most recent year available, nearly all of it in salary. Abel’s 2025 pay, along with those of other senior Berkshire executives, will be disclosed in a corporate filing later this year.

Buffett and Abel didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Salary was an afterthought for Buffett, whose own Berkshire stock portfolio had been accruing gains since Abel was in grade school. That paved the way for a pay structure “unique among major financial services companies," said Macrae Sykes, portfolio manager at Gabelli Funds, which holds Berkshire shares.

The ratio of returns to compensation at Berkshire will probably never be as high as under Buffett, he said. But “Greg Abel’s CEO tenure will benefit investors of Berkshire Hathaway due to his previous history of capital allocation success and entrepreneurial mindset."

As of early March, Buffett owned 206,359 shares of Berkshire Class A stock and 951 Class B shares. Abel owned 228 and 2,363, respectively, according to a company filing. Each Class A share is convertible into 1,500 B shares. Since then, Buffett has reported converting about 10,000 Class A shares and donating the proceeds to charity.

Abel’s salary is still a fraction of some recent headline-grabbing pay packages. Starbucks reported paying Brian Niccol $95.8 million in 2024, the year it named him to run the company in late September, with a base salary of $1.6 million. Tesla shareholders in November approved giving Chief Executive Elon Musk $1 trillion in Tesla stock if he hits certain milestones over the next decade.

Buffett made about $405,000, including a $100,000 salary and company-paid personal- and home-security services. He also repaid half his salary to cover “minor items such as postage/delivery fees" and other personal expenses the company incurred, it says in a securities filing. He hasn’t made more than $500,000 in total since 2010, when Berkshire reported paying him $524,946, MyLogIQ data show. Most of his pay in recent years consisted of security services.

Paying Berkshire’s new CEO a salary more in line with others who share the same title is just one way the storied conglomerate is starting to look more like a normal corporation. Another way: People are sometimes leaving for other pursuits. Berkshire disclosed late last year that Geico CEO Todd Combs is joining JPMorgan Chase and longtime finance chief Marc Hamburg is retiring in June.

“I think this continues the example of Berkshire becoming more like other companies," Stone said.

Write to Heather Gillers at heather.gillers@wsj.com and Theo Francis at theo.francis@wsj.com