Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders overwhelmingly voted to reject CEO David Zaslav’s $165 million pay package for 2025 during the media giant’s annual meeting on Thursday.
Per an SEC filing on Friday, a total of 244.5 million shares voted in favor of the package, compared to 1.31 billion shares that voted against and 7.2 million that abstained.
Zaslav’s latest package, which more than tripled from $51.9 million in 2024, included a $3 million base salary, $110 million in option awards, $22.6 million in stock awards, $25.7 million in non-equity incentive plan compensation and $4.1 million in “other” compensation.
Compared with the median WBD employees’ pay of $119,748 in 2025, Zaslav’s pay ratio sits at 1,378 to 1 — the largest among his Hollywood peers. However, when excluding one-time grants, that ratio falls to 463 to 1.
The vote comes after shareholders previously rejected Zaslav’s up to $887 million golden parachute tied to the closing of WBD’s pending $110 billion merger with Paramount during a special meeting in April, but voted to approve the transaction itself.
That package, which is primarily made up of option awards that were tied to the initial plans to split the company’s linear networks and studios & streaming businesses, included $34,219,178 in cash, $517,204,781 in equity and $44,195 in “perquisites and benefits.”
The cash component includes $6 million in salary severance and $28.2 million in bonus severance. Meanwhile, the equity component includes $443,131,800 in options, 60,867,415 in restricted stock units and 13,205,566 in performance-based restricted stock units.
Additionally, Zaslav is eligible to receive a tax reimbursement, though the actual amount will “significantly decline with the passage of time” under IRS rules depending on when the deal closes. Had it closed on March 11, Zaslav would’ve been eligible for a $335.4 million tax reimbursement, bringing his estimated total compensation package to $887 million.
Based on current estimates from WBD’s outside tax advisers, if the Paramount-WBD closing were to occur in 2027, no tax reimbursement payment would be expected to be made to Zaslav.
In addition to Zaslav, Warner Bros. Discovery Chief Financial Officer Gunnar Wiedenfels and Chief Strategy and Revenue Officer Bruce Campbell raked in $17.67 million and $22.26 million, respectively, while streaming and games chief JB Perrette received $22.53 million.
As for golden parachutes, Wiedenfels is eligible for a total payout of $120 million, Campbell for $121.5 million and Perrette for $142 million. International president Gerhard Zeiler is also eligible for a payout of $82.6 million.
Shares of Warner Bros. Discovery, which are trading at $26.90 apiece as of Friday afternoon, are down 10% in the past six months and 5.7% year to date, but are up 164.7% in the past year.
