Goldman Sachs’ David Solomon has restored the bank’s swagger — and it just rewarded him with a $47 million pay package for 2025.
It’s his highest annual pay yet, and it puts him ahead of his top competitor on Wall Street, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, whose firm announced this week it would pay him $43 million for last year’s performance.
Solomon’s prior-year compensation was $39 million for 2024, meaning this year’s pay is up 21%.
Goldman announced his compensation in a regulatory filing on Friday, citing “continued and significant shareholder value creation during 2025, including a total shareholder return of 57%,” under Solomon’s leadership. It touted “strong firmwide financial performance” and “continued advancement of our people strategy” amid heightened competition for talent.
Solomon won’t take home all $47 million in cash — his base salary is $2 million, a cash component makes up $10 million, and the rest will be distributed across stock units and carried interest, the bank said. The performance stock units that Goldman awarded Solomon make up the lion’s share of the pay package: $31.5 million.
Next month, it’s expected that other banks including Morgan Stanley and Citigroup will announce their chief execution compensation as well.
Goldman’s pay-for-performance mentality
Solomon’s pay is a bellwether for how the board thinks the firm is doing, and has been directly linked to performance. At the moment, shareholders seem pleased with Solomon’s approach to management, with its stock up more than 43% in the past year.
The firm just wrapped its second-best year overall, reporting net revenues of more than $58 billion in its most recent earnings disclosure last week.
And its investment bank, which handles high-profile corporate mergers and capital-raising events, also had its best year ever by revenue. Goldman said its 2025 banking and markets revenues were more than $41 billion, up 18% over the year prior; and investment banking fees were up 21%.
When he spoke to shareholders and analysts this earnings season, Solomon doubled down on his commitment to steer the firm through the AI revolution, and said 2026 M&A levels could rise to or surpass the records observed in 2021.
Though he had a rough few years, punctuated by stinging headlines and internal ups-and-downs — including rifts over a misfired consumer banking strategy and his stint as a DJ — Solomon has largely put the public criticism to bed and aligned its ranks behind a vision he first outlined at an Investor Day about six years ago.
Roughly a year ago, the bank awarded Solomon and his deputy, President and COO John Waldron, $80 million each in restricted stock units set to vest over a five-year period.
But when his reputation has taken a bruising, so has his paycheck. In 2022, Solomon took a 30% pay cut during a difficult year for Goldman, including when his consumer banking ambitions tanked.
