Jared Birchall: How much is the world’s richest man’s, right-hand man, paid?

Elon Musk makes headlines for a variety of reasons but his recent acquisition of Twitter has pushed his single Family Office Excession, further and further into the limelight.

It is has also placed a spotlight on Excession Managing Director and Elon Musk’s right-hand man, Jared Birchall who is now leading one of the most significant takeovers in history.

Birchall has been working for Musk for six years both within the Family Office and Neuralink, a neurotechnology company Co-Founded by Musk in 2016 that develops implantable brain–machine interfaces. While leading a professional life in private for many years at the likes of Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley, Birchall is now one of the most-talked about Leaders in the community and the question on everyone’s lips is, how much does the man, who works for the world’s richest man, make?

As the Family Office compensation experts, we thought we’d take a guess.

Given the fact that Family Offices are the investment vehicles of ultra-high-net-worth individuals, it should come as no surprise that the Leaders responsible for managing this wealth are compensated highly and for those managing multiples of billions, this can often mean multi-million-dollar packages.

As Excession has only two employees, we can imagine that Birchall is assuming the role of Managing Director and Chief Investment Officer so let’s delve into both data sets.

Looking at our Global Compensation Data and the majority of Managing Directors and Chief Executive Officers who work for US-based single Family Offices take home a basic salary of more than $396,000. This is paired most commonly with a 31% – 50% performance bonus alongside long-term incentive plans. This figure increases when looking at Family Offices with over $5BN in Assets Under Management, the bracket in which we would categorise Elon Musk, where those in Birchall’s position take home $450,001 – $500,000 as a basic salary, more than 80% of the time.

The data alone might suggest that Birchall would take home upwards of $750,000 but given the fact that he works with just one other, we can also assume he performs the role of Chief Investment Officer.

The average basic salary structure for Chief Investment Officers within a Single Family Office in America is $264,001 – $330,000 however, the majority take home a great deal more. Over 30% of CIO’s receive a basic compensation of more than $396,001 and this only increases in-line with Assets Under Management.

Chief Investment Officers working within Single Family Offices managing over $5BN can and often do take home more than seven figures. Our compensation data reveals that more than 50% of CIOs in this level of Family Office take home between $450,001 – $500,000 as a basic salary alone and just under 20% reach over the $500,000 mark as a basic salary.

Pairing basic salary with bonuses offers a much clearer picture of what these Leaders can take home each year. The majority of Chief Investment Officers surveyed told us that they take home between 31% and 100%. An equal amount of participating CIO’s told us their bonus ranged from 31% and 50%, 51% and 75% and 76% and 100% of their annual salary.  A further 15% told us they took home over 100% of their salary as a bonus every year.

With the average Chief Investment Officer for a $5BN+ Single Family Office taking home $500,000 and the average bonus sitting at 66%, you can imagine that Jared Birchall is taking home a minimum of $830,000 every year and that is without his dual role as Managing Director for the Single Family Office and CEO of Neuralink and of course, any long-term incentive plan such as carry or a deferred bonus. We would place this figure closer to the millions as many Leaders in our network take home upwards of this mark as a basic salary alone. Naturally, just like the families that lead them, each Family Office compensation structure is entirely different.

To offer an example of the top end of this structure. A Chief Investment Officer and Director who we work with closely is on a basic salary of $1.2M. He has a guaranteed bonus of at least 100% of his salary and is eligible for a long-term incentive plan which includes carry and co-investment opportunities, two types of structure that almost guarantees a seven-figure salary for any Leader.

Just take Helmut Jeggle as an example, the former Managing Director of Athos Service Family Office in Munich which manages the assets of the Strüngmann brothers and backed the world’s first and most effective coronavirus vaccination. Through his 14 year tenure he was able to co-invest alongside his Principals and in 2021 generated enough wealth to found his own Family Office, Salvia where he now manages both his own wealth and the wealth of the Strüngmann’s. His single investment in BioNTech in 2008 generated shares which he partially sold in 2020 for $49.2M which just illustrates the incredible compensation taken home by trusted Family Office leaders in a position of power.

Just like Jeggle, Jared Birchall has supported Elon Musk and his assets for over six years and with the sheer wealth at play, you can only imagine the significance of his compensation.