Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav Trashed for $50 Million Pay Package as Company Loses Money and Writers, Actors Struggle to Find Work: Report
Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav was trashed this week after it was revealed that he received a nearly $50 million payday last year.
Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav was trashed this week after it was revealed that he received a nearly $50 million payday last year, RadarOnline.com has learned.
In a concerning development to come just a few months after the Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA ended their fights for better contracts, it was revealed that Zaslav was awarded a $49.7 million salary in 2023.
Zaslav was awarded a $49.7 million salary in 2023.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Zaslav’s nearly $50 million salary last year marked a 27% increase from his salary just one year earlier.
Zaslav’s new whopping $49.7 million salary also came as his company, Warner Bros. Discovery, continued to struggle and lose money under his leadership.
Warner Bros. Discovery shares plummeted by a devastating 10% on Friday following a worse-than-expected quarterly earnings report.
While the company – which owns Warner Bros. studios, CNN, HBO, and HBO’s streaming service, Max – garnered a fourth quarter revenue of $10.28 billion in 2023, it fell short of the $10.35 billion the company expected to bring in.
Zaslav earned $50 million last year while most writers and actors were picketing on the frontlines of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes.
Zaslav blamed the poor earnings report on “underperformance.” Other industry insiders cited last year’s WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes.
“Bottom line, the studio has really been underperforming, including the end of the year where we had some real struggle,” Zaslav reportedly said during a Warner Bros. Discovery conference call after the earnings report was released this week.
“But we’re very optimistic about this year and it has given us a chance to have a lot of upside in the next two years,” he added. “I mean, it was really a struggle.”
Although the Zaslav-run company brought in a surprising $1.45 billion with their hit movie Barbie in 2023, the company also lost millions of dollars after other films like The Color Purple and Aquaman: The Lost Kingdom essentially flopped.
“I’m so delighted to hear that while many of us were fighting for our futures, David Zaslav saw his compensation package jump by more than $10 million."
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“On the film side, obviously this is going to continue to be a hit-driven business,” Warner Bros. Discovery’s chief financial officer, Gunnar Wiedenfels, explained this week.
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“And, you know,” he continued, “just last year was a great example with the greatest success in the film studios history and some real challenges across the industry on the on the superhero side.”
Meanwhile, several writers and actors took up arms on social media after it was revealed that Zaslav earned nearly $50 million in 2023 while they were picketing on the frontlines of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes.
“I’m so delighted to hear that while many of us were fighting for our futures (and barely scrapping by, even presently) David Zaslav saw his compensation package jump by more than $10 million to $49.7 million in 2023,” SAG-AFTRA’s Chelsea Schwartz tweeted. “The greed never ends.”
“There are people with high levels of disconnection from reality, and there is [David Zaslav],” tweeted another X user.
“Or Zaz doesn’t read the room at all or he literally doesn’t care,” that user continued, “but he rises his own salary, up almost +27% about to hit the 50M mark, in the same rates the [Warner Bros. Discovery] free-falls at the Stock Market under his watch since he took over…”
“F--- DAVID ZASLAV,” tweeted yet another angry writer. “F--- CEOS. F--- CAPITALISM.”
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