This is a list of the top paid chief executive officers in 2018 for publicly traded companies. : Skyrocketing compensation received by Corporate America's leading chief executives continues to be a topic of heated debate, and that's nowhere more clear than in the latest list of best paid CEOs, which includes well-known names such as Tesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk, Walt Disney Co. CEO Bob Iger and Apple Inc. leader Tim Cook. It may be no surprise that another highly paid executive comes from an emerging industry that took the market by storm: legal marijuana.