Ousted Paramount President Jeff Shell Made $61 Million in 2025
Last year was good to Jeff Shell. This year, not so much.
The short-lived Paramount Skydance president received a total pay package of $60.7 million in 2025. In April 2026, he was ousted amid a fight with a high-stakes gambler.
Shell may be off the Paramount org. chart, but he’s not yet off its books. Shell’s separation agreement called for cash payments equal to the salary and target bonus he would be eligible for, spread over the 12 months. Shell’s contract includes a $3.5 million salary and $1.5 million target bonus, so the cash payment should be in the ballpark of $5 million.
The only one to out-earn Shell over the four-ish months of 2025 that Skydance actually controlled Paramount was the combined company’s CEO, David Ellison, who was awarded a $63 million pay package. No wonder he can guarantee the Warner Bros. Discovery bid. (Kidding, the accepted bid is backstopped primarily by his wealthy dad, Oracle founder Larry Ellison.) Paramount Skydance is paying $111 billion to acquire the entire Warner Bros. Discovery company, pending regulatory approval.
Ellison in 2025 received a base salary from Paramount Skydance of $1.4 million, alongside stock awards of $58.7 million. He also received an additional $1.4 million in compensation, which included an annual incentive award, as well as services provided to Skydance and Paramount Global prior to the deal’s closing date. Skydance Media completed its $8.4 billion acquisition of Paramount Global on August 7, 2025.
Shell had the same base pay and stock awards as Ellison.
Over the majority of 2025, before Ellison came calling, George Cheeks (president and CEO of CBS), Brian Robbins (president and CEO of Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon), and Chris McCarthy (president and CEO, Showtime & MTV Entertainment Studios) shared the “Office of the CEO.” In 2024, the old trio tallied $61 million in total compensation: Cheeks’ piece of the pie was $22.1 million, Robbins’ was $19.6 million, and McCarthy got $19.5 million.
Those compensation packages included their earnings before they were elevated to the co-CEO roles, and the discrepancies between them reflect the differences in the divisions of the company that each oversaw. The year-old filing indicated that their compensation specific to their work in the office of the CEO was $6 million each.
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