Had we published the following story yesterday, you would have assumed it was an April Fool’s joke. It is not. Ford CEO Jim Farley saw his annual compensation rise to $27.5 million USD in 2025, driven by a bonus tied to the company meeting its quality targets. All this, the same year Ford issued 153 recalls, eclipsing its own previous record. Ironic, you say?
Ford issued 153 recalls in 2025, more than any other automaker, and by a wide margin.
Farley’s compensation is 295 times the average Ford employee’s salary.
The company posted significant losses in 2025.
It takes either a lot of nerve or an exceptionally creative public relations team to announce this with a straight face.
That said, some nuance is in order.
Jim Farley’s pay package
According to Yahoo Finance, Farley’s total compensation breaks down as follows: $1.7 million in base salary, $18.8 million in stock awards, $5.7 million in performance bonuses, and $1.2 million in “other compensation,” including personal use of a corporate jet and a private security detail. The total comes to $27,519,558 USD.
For comparison, in 2024, when Ford fell short of its quality targets, Farley’s performance bonus amounted to just $1.6 million. At $5.7 million, the jump is substantial. What rankles is how the targets themselves are defined. That matters just as much as the results.
Specifically, Ford chose to measure quality not by the number of recalls, a metric most consumers would consider fairly telling, but by initial quality, meaning problems reported within the first 90 days of ownership. Farley himself has argued that the recalls largely involve older vehicles, and that the new models coming off the line are among the best Ford has ever built.
That claim has been strongly disputed by numerous analysts. Without reviewing all 153 of Ford’s 2025 recalls individually, we can tell you that dozens involved model years 2024 through 2026.
To put the numbers in perspective: 153 recalls in a single year is more than double the record of 77 set by General Motors in 2014, a year the industry described as catastrophic for GM’s reputation. Ford topped that, with 153 campaigns, and the CEO gets a bonus.
Ford Issued 153 Recalls in 2025, More Than the Following Nine Brands Combined
That is an insult to ordinary people and to every Ford vehicle owner. And to be fair, some of the bonuses are tied to Ford EVs’ good performance in China. It’s not always black and white, but it often seems that way. The problem is that quality is included in those bonuses. That’s what the public will take away.
Arrogance?
There is something deeply revealing about all this. It is not purely about the money. A $27.5 million salary for one individual can be justified when a company is posting spectacular profits, and the decisions made at the top are benefiting everyone.
That is not the case here. And the gap between what employees earn and what the CEO takes home is drawing considerable attention. Farley’s pay is 295 times that of the average Ford worker.
It is also worth noting that Ford posted significant losses in 2025, largely due to EV write-downs, particularly in the Model e division, and approximately $2 billion in tariff-related costs. A major automaker’s financial results are admittedly complex, with wide variation across divisions and losses often tied to long-term investments. Even so, 2025 was a harder year for Ford.
In Ford’s defense
Some will argue that Jim Farley is turning Ford around and that he deserves his salary and bonuses. That may be true, and Ford’s argument that the recalls involve older vehicles is technically defensible. It is not internally contradictory, even if it is from the consumer’s perspective.
But that is precisely the kind of accounting logic that illustrates how far removed corporate boards and CEOs are from the reality faced by their customers and employees. Consumers who receive a recall notice do not distinguish between vehicles built before or after Farley took over. What they see is a manufacturer asking them to bring their car back to the shop, again, while senior management swims in millions.
Perhaps the most telling reaction to Ford’s announcement about its CEO’s pay came from the markets. In the wake of the news, Ford’s stock dropped nearly 2.5 percent.
And what does 2026 have in store? Ford is already on pace for another record year of recalls. Will that translate into another bonus for the boss?
