{"id":604511,"date":"2026-04-24T23:07:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T23:07:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/604511\/"},"modified":"2026-04-24T23:07:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T23:07:08","slug":"paramount-skydance-discloses-2025-pay-for-ceo-david-ellison-former-president-jeff-shell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/604511\/","title":{"rendered":"Paramount Skydance Discloses 2025 Pay for CEO David Ellison, Former President Jeff Shell"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tParamount Skydance<\/a> chairman and CEO David Ellison<\/a>, who is in the midst of trying close a massive deal to buy Warner Bros. Discovery, had a pay package worth $63.2 million last year \u2014 mostly in stock that vests over five years.<\/p>\n

\n\tJeff Shell<\/a>, who resigned as Paramount\u2019s president earlier this month<\/a> to \u201cfocus\u201d on a breach-of-contract lawsuit filed against him, had a total compensation package worth $60.68 million. The company disclosed the executive compensation in an SEC filing Friday.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn addition, chief legal officer Makan Delrahim, who joined the company in September<\/a>, had 2025 compensation worth $63.58 million, per the filing. Delrahim had advised Skydance on its takeover of Paramount Global. He was formerly an assistant attorney general overseeing the U.S. Department of Justice\u2019s Antitrust Division during President Trump\u2019s first term.<\/p>\n

\n\tFormer RedBird Capital Partners executive Andy Gordon, Paramount\u2019s chief strategy officer and COO, had a pay package worth $48.5 million.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe bulk of each exec\u2019s 2025 compensation was in \u201csign-on\u201d stock grants, which vest over five years. Those stock awards \u201cwere intended to represent equity compensation for each grantee over a five-year period and granted with the expectation that these executives would receive periodic, rather than annual, equity grants,\u201d Paramount said in the filing.<\/p>\n

\n\tEllison received stock awards valued at $58.7 million. He was paid a base salary of $1.41 million and received a cash bonus of $1.41 million, both pro-rated for the time of his employment from Aug. 7 (when the Paramount-Skydance deal closed) through the end of 2025. <\/p>\n

\n\tIn addition, Ellison\u2019s pay package included $1.69 million in other compensation. That comprised $1.68 million personal security-related costs for Ellison, $12,584 in costs \u201cassociated with personal guest attendance of certain business events,\u201d and $648 in company-paid life insurance, per the filing.<\/p>\n

\n\tShell in 2025 also had a pro-rated salary of $1.41 million and cash bonus of $1.41 million, plus one-time stock awards valued at $58.7 million. But he won\u2019t get all of that stock: Under the terms of his separation agreement with Paramount<\/a>, he will be eligible to receive accelerated vesting of his stock awards that would have otherwise vested through the 12-month anniversary of the date of separation. Shell also will receive an amount in cash equal to his\u00a0annual base salary of $3.5 million\u00a0and $1.5 million target annual bonus for 12 months following his exit. <\/p>\n

\n\tOn April 8, Paramount Skydance said\u00a0Shell was departing to \u201cfocus\u201d on a lawsuit<\/a>\u00a0filed by R.J. Cipriani, a professional gambler who\u00a0claims Shell owes him $150 million for crisis PR services<\/a>\u00a0and alleges the exec shared confidential information about Paramount in violation of securities laws. Shell has strongly denied any wrongdoing (and has countersued Cipriani for defamation<\/a>), and Paramount said an internal investigation found he had not violated of securities laws.<\/p>\n

\n\tGordon, Paramount\u2019s strategy chief and COO, had a pro-rated salary of $1.13 million and cash bonus of $454,246, plus $46.96 million worth of stock vesting over five years.<\/p>\n

\n\tDelrahim\u2019s 2025 compensation included $844,828 in salary, $336,144 cash bonus, and \u201csign-on\u201d stock awards worth $57.39 million.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Paramount Skydance chairman and CEO David Ellison, who is in the midst of trying close a massive deal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":604512,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[18205,88,40138,48502,92],"class_list":["post-604511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-david-ellison","tag-entertainment","tag-jeff-shell","tag-paramount-skydance","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=604511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604511\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/604512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=604511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=604511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=604511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}