{"text":[[{"start":3.95,"text":"It’s safe to say the bosses of big US companies ended 2025 richer. The average CEO’s pay increased 4.3 per cent last year, according to Equilar, reaching 219 times that of the median employee. But judging by the growing prevalence of corporate spending on personal security, while remuneration is rising, so is the prevailing level of anxiety."}],[{"start":26.55,"text":"The trend towards paying more to keep CEOs safe started long before the killing of UnitedHealthcare chief Brian Thompson at the end of 2024. That event undoubtedly gave companies a spur to broaden their budgets. More than 29 per cent of S&P 500 companies provided home security perks for their top brass in 2025, based on businesses that have revealed their perquisites so far, compared with 22 per cent in 2024, according to ISS-Corporate."}],[{"start":null,"text":"
"}],[{"start":55.900000000000006,"text":"At the top end, the names are familiar. Meta Platforms spent $8.5mn on protection for chief executive Mark Zuckerberg last year, part of a $14mn allowance that covers bodyguards and home security. At Salesforce, the personal security spend for CEO Marc Benioff — covering bodyguards, home security systems and threat monitoring — reached $4.4mn in 2025. Tesla, meanwhile, paid $2.5mn in 2024 to a company owned by Elon Musk in order to protect its peripatetic chief executive."}],[{"start":91.9,"text":"There’s one area where one person’s idea of safety is another’s idea of luxury. Corporate aircraft usage is an expense that in almost all instances is justified as a security measure. About two-fifths of the S&P 500 provided personal use of a private jet to one or more of their named executives in 2024. There are exceptions, even among companies with what might seem like high-risk businesses. Palmer Luckey, founder of privately held defence tech unicorn Anduril, says he flies in economy. "}],[{"start":121.2,"text":"The security surge is not reserved to blue chips, either. The share of US small- and mid-cap companies that provide home security to their bosses has doubled since 2023, to 5.1 per cent, based on year-to-date data. While median spending has fallen over the past five years, that may reflect the fact that more, smaller companies are taking up the habit. ISS has noted that such benefits tend to be “reactionary”."}],[{"start":146.3,"text":"While more highly paid than their UK and European peers, US chief executives are also more scrutinised, thanks to voluminous disclosures demanded by the Securities and Exchange Commission. That may change: the regulator is undertaking a review that may mean companies are no longer compelled to divulge this kind of information. Regardless of the outcome, complaining about CEO perks is undeniably harder when it’s not just the boss’s feelings such expenses are meant to defend."}],[{"start":182.35,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1781148857_1457.mp3"}