Philippe Dauman, Marissa Mayer and Michael Ovitz are among a handful of entertainment and tech executives who were handed handsome sums of money while they were being forced out the door. (Please note: All totals are from SEC filings and other official sources.)
Name: Philippe Dauman
Company: Viacom
Payday: $72 million
Sumner Redstone’s former protege — and for years, one of America’s highest-paid CEOs — took home $72 million as part of a settlement that will see him depart the embattled media company in September.
Name: Roger Ailes
Company: Fox News
Payday: $40 million
Ailes left the news network he essentially built after a lawsuit filed by a former Fox News anchorwoman led to an investigation, and several other women coming forward accusing Ailes of sexual assault. Ailes resigned two weeks after the lawsuit was filed and received $40 million.
Name: Michael Ovitz
Company: The Walt Disney Company
Payday: $140 million
Not a CEO, the co-founder of Creative Artists Agency made $140 million in less than a year’s work as the executive president of Disney, when he was fired by then-CEO Michael Eisner, triggering a severance package that was built into his deal — and which Disney shareholders unsuccessfully tried to have returned in court.
Name: Carly Fiorina
Company: Hewlett-Packard
Payday: $21 million
The former Republican presidential candidate — and Ted Cruz’s presumptive running mate — pocketed $21 million when she was forced to resign after orchestrating a disastrous acquisition of Compaq.
Name: Marissa Mayer
Company: Yahoo
Payday: $55 million
Mayer hasn’t yet committed to leaving, but she’s widely expected to depart the top job after Yahoo agreed to be purchased by Verizon for $4.8 billion. Mayer is guaranteed $55 million in severance if she loses her job or if there is a change in control.
Name: Henrique de Castro
Company: Yahoo
Payday: $58 billion
It turns out there is actually a good time to get fired: Mayer canned de Castro, Yahoo’s chief operating officer, in 2014, but his heavily stock-based severance package was worth a robust $58 million, as Yahoo’s stock had swelled at the time due to its ownership interest in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba.
Name: Tom Freston
Company: Viacom
Payday: $85 million
Freston, Dauman’s precedessor and the man who essentially built MTV, was fired by Redstone in 2006. One of the biggest reasons: his failure to buy MySpace, which News Corp. eventually sold in 2011 for a $545 million loss.
Name: Rob Marcus
Company: Time Warner Cable
Payday: $93 million
Time Warner Cable was acquired by Charter Communications earlier this year, making his CEO job redundant. Marcus walked away with nearly $100 million after two-and-a-half years of work.
Name: Jack Welch
Company: General Electric
Payday: $417 million
GE’s pugnacious boss scored the granddaddy of all severance packages, walking away with a monster deal that only became public during a divorce settlement that mandated the disclosure of his retirement benefits.
Name: Amy Pascal
Company: Sony
Payday: Four-year production deal, valued at $40 million
Pascal, whose personal emails were exposed as a result of the Sony hack landing her in hot water regarding references to President Obama — was fired as co-chair of Sony’s film division in the wake of the scandal. She got a production deal — not uncommon for high-level studio execs — that has her attached to some of the studio’s biggest franchises, including “Spider-Man” and “Ghostbusters.”
