- Axon CEO Rick Smith topped the highest-paid CEOs list, reportedly raking in $165 million through stock incentives at his company, selling Tasers, security cameras, drones, and VR training. Smith became a billionaire last year due to his compensation package, boasting a net worth of $2.5 billion. But the tragic backstory behind his $17 billion company, which has driven its business ethos, may be partly false.
When imagining the highest paid CEOs, one might guess Jensen Huang leading Nvidia’s breakout success, or Elon Musk helming his multiple tech successes. But the top executive taking home the bacon is the boss of Tasers.
Rick Smith, the co-founder and chief executive of Axon Enterprise, was the highest-paid CEO in 2024, a new report has revealed.
According to the WSJ, the Axon CEO got a $165 million pay package last year—topping that of Larry Culp’s $89 million, Stephen Schwartzman’s $84 million, and Tim Cook’s $75 million. Smith’s total pay is a 999% increase from his compensation in 2023, which has shot up dramatically since Axon’s compensation revamp last year.
The Axon leader has run the company since 1993, and became a billionaire last year after the company changed its CEO wage strategy. Smith said he was inspired to launch the company—which manufactures Tasers, and has expanded to security cameras, drones, and VR training largely for government agencies—after two of his high school friends were gunned down. He saw Taser devices as a less lethal way to help end gun violence. But family members of the victims have rejected his claims.
Soaring stocks and a Musk-inspired pay package launched him to billionaire status
While Smith tops this year’s list of highest-paid CEOs, he made headlines last year for rising to billionaire status with a highly lucrative pay strategy.
Last year, Axon modeled its chief executive’s total compensation after Musk’s package at Tesla. Nearly all of his money lies in stock awards—which have been soaring over the past few years. Axon’s revenue had grown more than 30% for three years straight by 2024, reeling in a record-breaking annual net income of $377 million. The business’s shares also more than doubled in 2023, skyrocketing by over 50%. Combined with the rest of his pay package, he finally made the Bloomberg Billionaires index in 2024, boasting a net worth of $2.5 billion.
This type of compensation is high-risk, but also high-reward—if Axon doesn’t meet its stock price, operations targets, and minimum service requirements for the years from 2024 to 2030, Smith doesn’t receive his full pay package.
An Axon spokesperson told Fortune that the $165 million pay package “does not represent realized pay, but rather the potential value of the award if all performance milestones are fully achieved over the life of the program.” The WSJ reported that two of Axon’s seven performance targets had been met by March, according to the company’s filings.
The Journal’s analysis used data from MyLogIQ, a provider of public-company data, and included CEOs on the job for at least a year at more than 400 S&P 500 companies reporting pay through mid-May for fiscal years ending after June 30, 2024
However, one thing is clear: Smith’s net worth has been ballooning as the company has grown. In 2019, he had a reported pay of $246 million catapulted by growing stocks. And over the past year, Axon’s stock price rose 160%, pushing its market cap to $50 billion, and making the shares underlying Smith’s rewards worth around $500 million.
The inspiration for founding the company in murky waters
The main ethos of the $17 billion company is to save lives—Smith espouses Taser devices as a less lethal alternative to guns. He has repeatedly said he got the inspiration to found the company after two of his high school friends on his football team were shot and killed. But the validity of his tragic backstory has been called into question.
Smith has long pushed this narrative, telling the story to crowds of law-enforcement officers; citing it in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in 2020; and running it in company campaigns—including one celebrating Axon’s 30th anniversary. But an investigation from Reuters has found many of Smith’s claims appear to be false. It reported that Smith was not close friends with the deceased, and cited incorrect details about the incident. Axon spokesperson Alex Engel told Reuters that Smith got to know the slain young men through “team-related social events.”
One of the victim’s fathers has accused Axon of running “a whole advertising campaign based on the murder of [his] son.” The victim’s sister also said Smith was “making money off of being a great liar.”
Whether or not the CEO was close friends with the shooting victims, a spokesperson from the company told Fortune it stands by his account that the tragic event inspired “him to dedicate his life to reducing violence through technology.”
“We’re proud of the mission-driven culture at Axon and remain focused on the work ahead,” a spokesperson said while taking aim at Reuters’ reporting, which they described as a”five-year crusade to falsely defame our company.”
