What is Bob Iger’s yearly salary as CEO of Disney?

The Bob Iger you see today is not the same Bob Iger who ran Disney prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Back then, the Disney CEO could do no wrong, having shepherded the company through its acquisition of 20th Century Fox, overseeing the Marvel boom that produced blockbuster-annihilating such as Avengers: Endgame and Avengers: Infinity War, as well as bringing to life a number of billion-dollar live-action remakes from the magical company’s animated classics vault. 

Nowadays, Iger is fighting an uphill battle to keep the company alive. In addition to Marvel suffering blow after blow from both critics and at the box office, movies such as The Little Mermaid and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny contributed to billion-dollar losses at the company. Furthermore, seismic shifts within Disney Plus have resulted in a mass exodus of projects from the streaming platform, all in the name of cost-cutting measures. 

Indeed, after Iger stepped down as CEO in 2021, Disney took a noticeable downturn. It was a slow downturn, but a downturn nonetheless, one which Iger is working overtime to fix. With Bob Chapek having gone from Iger’s famous successor to his infamous predecessor, the pressure for Iger to right Disney’s ship has been an ongoing battle, and unfortunately for Iger, it hasn’t been aided by positive PR. 

In July 2023, Iger’s now-infamous words speaking out against the SAG-AFTRA strike turned him from the white knight to the anti-hero who sits on a golden throne ordering those around him who can hardly pay rent to hush up and get back to work. As a matter of fact, Iger’s ludicrous salary became the crux with which naysayers leveled their arguments. Here’s a man making millions of dollars a year accusing those who make a fraction of a fraction of that as being unrealistic.

But does he really make millions of dollars a year? That’s the — excuse me for this — million-dollar question. As it turns out, the salary Iger sees today is not the same one he saw prior to stepping down in 2021.

How much does Bob Iger make a year?

When Iger was brought back to run Disney in November 2022, his earnings were aired across the web. Unlike his predecessor Chapek, who earned a base salary of $2.5 million a year, Iger was brought back with a base salary of only $1 million, according to Variety. Talk about slumming it. 

The reason everyone latched on to the “He makes $25 million a year, how dare he call us unrealistic” conversation is that, on top of his annual salary, Iger earns a handsome yearly bonus (or “long-term incentive award” in fancy terms) of around $25 million, depending on how well the company performs. In actuality, Iger could see upwards of $27 million a year including his base salary and his “incentive award” as is spelled out in his contract. 

But hey, Iger’s a reasonable man. He knows when to take a pay cut for the greater good of his company. Before he left in 2021, he took home $45.9 million, which included a $22.9 bonus. His base salary at the time was $3 million. (See, he’s reasonable).

Of course, his net worth in 2019 was reported to be around $690 million, per Forbes, so a few million slashed here and there is truly not that much of a pay cut when you pan back. But I digress.