New GM Chief Rejects Salary Reduction

Fritz Henderson, General Motors’ new chief executive, is already correcting the mistakes of his predecessor: He announced today that he won’t be reducing his salary to $1 a year like the ousted Rick Wagoner. Perhaps his reasoning was that his base salary as chief operating officer was cut 30 percent earlier this year, to about $1.3 million, when GM took loans from the government. Of course, his total compensation in 2008 was valued at $8.7 million, $6.2 million less than Wagoner’s—and both are now worth a fraction of that, after GM shares plunged from around $40 in late 2007 to about $2 this week.