Warner Bros. Discovery to ‘significantly reduce’ David Zaslav salary after spinoff

Just about two weeks after Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) shareholders symbolically voted against CEO David Zaslav’s $51.9 million annual salary, the company is making efforts to reduce the executive’s pay.

According to a report by Todd Spangler of Variety, a Monday SEC filing shows that WBD entered into a new employment agreement with Zaslav that will “significantly reduce his target annual compensation, including lowering his annual cash compensation opportunity and reorienting the total pay mix toward long-term incentives.”

Last week, WBD announced its intention to split its cable assets, including TNT Sports, into a publicly traded company separate from its streaming and studios businesses. Zaslav will head the streaming and studios entity, seen internally as the growth part of the company, while current CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels will lead the entity coined “Global Networks” that will take on the majority of WBD’s current debt. The move is expected to be completed by mid-2026, per Variety.

Zaslav’s current compensation package largely incentivized him to pay down the company’s massive debt load. But as he moves towards leading just the future-looking assets currently under the WBD umbrella, it makes sense to align his compensation with long-term incentives.

“We structured the new compensation packages to address shareholders’ feedback by fostering pay-for-performance alignment, ensuring industry-standard pay structures, and incentivizing contributions to position the two new leading media companies for success and shareholder value creation,” WBD chairperson Samuel A. Di Piazza Jr. said in a statement.

Following WBD’s split, Zaslav’s base salary of $3 million will remain the same, but the rest of his compensation package will change dramatically. His bonus opportunities decrease from $22 million to $6 million annually. His equity incentive plan will have a target value of $15.5 million in Year 1, then $7.5 million in subsequent years, down from $23.5 million in the current arrangement.

To compensate for the haircut, Zaslav received a one-time “inducement” of 20,898,776 stock options on June 12, 60% of which will vest based on the stock’s performance. Variety reports that Zaslav may not receive all of those options. WBD’s board believes the inducement “will incentivize the successful completion of the Separation and stockholder value creation.”

Suffice it to say, Zaslav won’t be applying for food stamps after his salary restructuring. It does show, however, that WBD’s board is willing to listen to its shareholders, at least on matters of executive compensation.