It’s easy to assume that the CEOs of America’s most successful companies would be raking in mountains of cash year after year. While this may be true, in a surprising number of cases this isn’t because of their yearly salaries. Some of the top business executives in the country are making just a dollar per year, and for an interesting reason.
Beginning with the CEOs of General Electric and General Motors during WWII, business leaders lent their companies to war efforts but decided to forgo their large salaries in order to help out the government, which could not legally use the work of unpaid volunteers. That legacy has lasted to this day, with the wealthiest men and women in the country deciding to give up big paychecks to appear humble, while still making fat stacks behind the scenes.