It’s not how much he owns, it’s that executive comp is often heavily weighted to equity not salary: dropping your salary by 98% only matters if that salary represents a significant amount of your actual income.
You’re missing the point entirely; if you’re a founder CEO who owns a large chunk of the company, then your existing ownership dwarfs all of your salary, bonus, and equity compensation. You get “paid”
in share price increases, not cash or stock. Surrendering any part of your compensation is just a gimmick.
With the proportion of the business he owns the majority of his comp will be in growing the stock price. He'll be taking a massive hit without the salary decrease from market conditions.
