Shankh Mitra Salary Package: All About Pay of Indian-Origin Welltower CEO, Ranked 2nd Globally
Welltower CEO Shankh Mitra, an executive of Indian origin, earned USD 821 million in 2025, ranking second globally behind Elon Musk. The compensation was primarily composed of performance-linked stock awards. This historic pay total is estimated to be over two crore times the average Indian annual salary.
Shankh Mitra, the CEO of American healthcare-property giant Welltower, has emerged as the second highest-paid company boss globally for 2025. According to earnings data, Mitra secured an impressive compensation package of USD 821 million, placing him behind only Tesla’s Elon Musk, whose total pay reached USD 158 billion.
Shankh Mitra Breakdown of Compensation and Stock Performance
The vast majority of Mitra’s earnings were not derived from a regular cash salary, but rather from company shares. As per a report by Republic World, approximately 99% of his total compensation came in the form of stock grants. A significant stock grant issued in October was initially valued at nearly USD 789 million, but rising share prices throughout the year pushed the value of this award beyond the USD 1 billion mark. This growth was driven by Welltower’s strong performance, which saw its share price climb by approximately 50% during the year. Indian CEO Pay Surge: Median Compensation for Professional Chief Executives Rises 5% to INR 10.5 Crore in FY26, Says Deloitte Report.
Trends in Executive Pay
The rise of such massive compensation packages reflects a broader shift in corporate governance, where boards increasingly favour stock-based awards tied to ambitious performance metrics over fixed cash salaries. This trend has resulted in more American CEOs clearing the USD 100 million threshold in 2025 than in any year since 2021. Other notable earners included Nikesh Arora of Palo Alto Networks, who ranked eighth with a USD 100 million package, and Warner Bros. Discovery’s David Zaslav, who earned USD 165 million. Indian CEO in Top Companies: Growing List of Indian-Origin CEOs at Top Firms Impresses Elon Musk.
Contextualising Earnings Against Average Salaries
To understand the scale of these figures, they are often compared to average earnings. Based on India's Periodic Labour Force Survey for 2025, the average annual salary for a male worker is approximately INR 2.9 lakh. By these metrics, an average worker would need over two crore years of employment to match the amount Mitra earned in a single year. Even a professional earning a significantly higher annual salary of INR 9 lakh would require roughly eight lakh years of work to reach an equivalent sum.
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jun 26, 2026 04:52 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).
