By Alexander Lomax
Axon CEO Rick Smith. Photo Credit: Jim Poulin, Phoenix Business Journal
2024 was a good year to be Rick Smith, but not as good of a year to be a taxpayer in Scottsdale.
The CEO of Axon earned the dubious distinction of being America’s highest-paid chief executive last year. Yet despite his astronomical compensation package worth $165 MILLION, Smith apparently still needs taxpayers to subsidize his corporate ambitions.
Axon’s proposed massive headquarters and apartment complex in Scottsdale represents a stunning display of corporate welfare dependency. We should never forget that Axon’s rezoning end-around on the parcel of land that it wants to put its apartment megacomplex on was not only purposely misleading to the public, but singlehandedly shortchanged tens of millions of dollars from Arizona’s schools via the Arizona State Land Trust. In short, this subterfuge allowed it to be purchased for a massively lower price than it would have been if it had been purchased for its current intended use.
Tens of millions stolen from Arizona schools by the best paid CEO in America, all so he can build the biggest apartment complex in Arizona history for private benefit…I’m sorry, but why aren’t people in the streets with torches and pitchforks?
The irony is impossible to ignore. Smith could build the project himself solely with one year’s worth of compensation. Here’s a CEO who could personally fund small nations asking working families to chip in for his pet project. If the headquarters expansion is truly essential for business operations, why did Axon feel the need to screw over Arizona students instead of using the company’s record-breaking profits to cover the costs?
This isn’t economic development; it’s wealth redistribution in reverse. While Smith lectures about fiscal responsibility and free markets, his company demands the very government intervention that successful businesses typically avoid.
The message is clear: even America’s most lavishly compensated executives believe taxpayers owe them something. Perhaps it’s time to ask whether corporate welfare recipients like Axon deserve the same scrutiny we apply to other beneficiaries of public assistance.
After all, if you can afford to be America’s highest-paid CEO, you can afford to pay market rate for your own headquarters.