Welltower Co-President and CFO Timothy McHugh received a pay package of nearly $167 million in 2025, making him the highest-paid finance chief in the U.S.
That figure tops the $139 million that Tesla’s Vaibhav Taneja took home in 2024 — previously the highest on record for a U.S. finance chief. Alphabet’s Anat Ashkenazi, the second-highest-paid CFO in the S&P 500 last year, ranked more than $135 million behind McHugh, whose total compensation rivals or exceeds that of many chief executives.
Stock awards worth roughly $164 million accounted for nearly all of McHugh’s 2025 package, a dramatic jump from his $7.2 million in total compensation the prior year. Behind that increase is Welltower’s 10-year Executive Continuity and Alignment Program, adopted in October 2025, which gave senior leaders one-time grants of time- and performance-based equity designed to function as their principal pay — beyond a base salary of $110,000 annually — for the following decade, according to the company’s proxy filing.
None of those equity grants can be accessed for five years; beginning in October 2030, shares of Welltower common stock will become redeemable in monthly installments through September 2035. McHugh’s grant is split evenly between time-based units and performance-based units, the latter linked to market capitalization targets and relative total shareholder return.
Welltower, which operates seniors housing communities across the U.S., U.K., and Canada as a real estate investment trust, delivered a total shareholder return of close to 50% in 2025.
Across all U.S. public companies, McHugh was among just three CFOs whose 2025 pay crossed the $100 million threshold, according to The Wall Street Journal. Summit Therapeutics’ Manmeet Soni — who holds a dual CFO and COO role at the biopharmaceutical company — pulled in over $249 million, and Miles Everson, who departed as CFO of energy company Fermi, collected more than $134 million. Both companies fall outside the S&P 500.
For S&P 500 finance chiefs overall, the midpoint of annual pay climbed to approximately $6 million last year from about $5.8 million in 2024.