The company that sells Tasers to police departments around the world paid its chief executive $246 million last year, according to a proxy filed last month, one of the biggest compensation packages for a corporate leader.
The pay came in a package of stock options that Axon Enterprise Inc. gave longtime CEO Patrick Smith last year. However, the options only vest if the company’s market value surges and it achieves other performance targets, according to the proxy filing.
Mr. Smith’s reported compensation far surpasses that of the highest-paid CEOs last year at much larger companies and is about 20 times the median pay for an S&P 500 chief, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis. Axon is too small to be in the S&P 500 index.
