Via Grist, the new CEO of Duke Energy resigned today after only one day on the job, but according to the Wall Street Journal, he will retain his full severance package and relocation expenses for that one grueling day of sitting in a high-rise office.
Despite his short-lived tenure, Mr. Johnson will receive exit payments worth as much as $44.4 million, according to Duke. That includes $7.4 million in severance, a nearly $1.4 million cash bonus, a special lump-sum payment worth up to $1.5 million and accelerated vesting of his stock awards, according to a Duke regulatory filing Tuesday night. Mr. Johnson gets the lump-sum payment as long as he cooperates with Duke and doesn’t disparage his former employer, the filing said.
Under his exit package, Mr. Johnson also will receive approximately $30,000 to reimburse him for relocation expenses.
Philip Bump of Grist did the math
So assuming that he worked for a full eight hours on Monday, that comes out to a nice $5.5 million an hour — some 765,000 times the national minimum wage. His relocation alone is over half the average annual salary for an American worker.
Johnson's resignation was apparently a forced resignation, meaning he was fired, but I assume Duke Energy shareholders will not be very happy regardless. And funneling this kind of money to the top has nothing to do with your high utility bills, right?
Can someone remind me who exactly is on welfare in this country?