David Zaslav and actor Don Johnson courtside at the New York Knicks game. (Photo by Allen Berezovsky/Getty Images)
The shareholder revolt wasn’t just big—it was historic. On Monday, Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders gathered for the company's annual meeting. Usually such affairs are uneventful, a predictable display of corporate pageantry. But when the shareholders voted this year, they decided to make some serious noise.
On Tuesday, WBD disclosed that nearly 60% of its shareholders voted to reject the company’s 2024 executive compensation plan, delivering one of the largest say-on-pay rebukes in S&P 500 history. It was an unmistakable message—and it was aimed directly at the man who has come to symbolize the handsomely paid—and oh so out of touch—media executive class, comprised of the select few whose pay keeps climbing even as company value collapses around them.
David Zaslav pulled in $51.9 million last year, a 4.5% bump from the year prior. Meanwhile, WBD's stock has struggled mightily. Shares have declined 7% year to date. And, more importantly…
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Status Scoop | BI-ing Their Time: It’s the all-hands that keeps getting kicked down the calendar. Nearly a week after Business Insider laid off a staggering 21% of its newsroom, Editor-in-Chief Jamie Heller has yet to take unscripted questions from her shell-shocked staff. On the day of the layoffs, both Heller and top boss Barbara Peng gave brief, heavily scripted remarks, then disappeared. Heller was supposed to address staff on Monday, but that meeting was inexplicably…
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