by Sharelle B. McNair
May 5, 2025
Cornell only earned $9.9 million in 2024 — a 45% drop from 2023 and the lowest since 2016.
A new report revealed that Target CEO Brian Cornell’s salary dropped 87% from his compensation peak of $77.5 million in 2020, the Minnesota Star Tribune reports.
Cornell only earned $9.9 million in 2024 — a 45% drop from 2023 and the lowest since 2016. With a salary of $1,400,000, he also received a bonus worth $785,400. However, the decline in payment highlights the financial struggles that the Minneapolis-based retailer has suffered in recent years, in addition to political backlash.
Target fell short of annual performance targets in 2023 and missed an even wider margin in 2024. Brand executives seemingly receive equity awards for medium-term performance over three years in correlation with their colleagues. During the 2022-2024 performance period, the retailer’s performance fell short of sales, earnings, and return on specific invested capital sales goals.
As a result, Target leaders earned 61.6% of the combined goal.
For Cornell, he received $5.5 million from those performance-based equity awards; in 2023, he earned $13.6 million. If the company underperforms on goals, as it did, the pay could be less.
Pay for Cornell and fellow Target leaders could decrease even more amid backlash from the company’s controversial dial-back on DEI and President Donald Trump’s growing tariffs. Target’s DEI announcement resulted in a massive boycott from Black and other consumers after a call to action from civil rights leaders. Cornell and Rev. Al Sharpton met to come to common ground, and the leader referred to the conversation as “constructive and candid.”
Sharpton and Rev. Jamal Bryant called for the boycott after the retailer officially ended its three-year-long DEI goals in January 2025, shortly after Trump took office, targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. After Cornell announced that the brand would no longer send company reports and data to external diversity-focused groups such as the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Index, stores nationwide experienced declining traffic and sales.
Catering to Trump’s tactics may have some adverse consequences, as Cornell accused incoming tariffs on products from Mexico of having grave effects on the price of fruits and vegetables sold in stores. According to the Daily Beast, Cornell said customers “will likely see price increases over the next couple of days.” “If there’s a 25 percent tariff, those prices will go up,” he said in March 2025.
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