TikTok’s highest-paid celebrities collectively hauled in $55.5 million in 2021, a 200% increase from a year earlier, Forbes reported. TikTok user Charli D’Amelio started posting videos of herself dancing on TikTok in 2019. She made $17.5 million in 2021. With 133 million followers on TikTok, she makes her money from a clothing line and promoting products in TikTok videos and other ads. And many others make also millions on TikTok.
According to the Wall Streen Journal (WSJ), median pay for CEOs of S&P 500 companies was $13.4 million in 2020, including stock and option awards, which typically make up most of executive pay, as well as annual salary and bonus, perks and some kinds of retirement-benefit gains.
Charli D’Amelio’s compensation was higher than several CEOs of big publicly traded companies, including Exxon Mobil Corp. ’s Darren Woods ($15.6 million in 2020), Starbucks Corp. ’s Kevin Johnson ($14.7 million), Delta Air Lines Inc. ’s Ed Bastian ($13.1 million) and McDonald’s Corp. ’s Chris Kempczinski ($10.8 million), according to the Journal’s analysis of their recent compensation figures.
Dixie D’Amelio, Charli’s older sister, was the second-highest TikTok earner last year, according to Forbes, bringing in $10 million. Mae Karwowski of influencer marketing agency Obviously noted that many top TikTok influencers run new companies, launch brands and diversify their income streams.
They’re really building business empires. The numbers we see now are only getting bigger.
Mae Karwowski, CEO and founder of influencer marketing agency Obviously
Evidently, TikTok is a platform for very real money in the dawning cyberfinance environment.
