- CEO number one is Stuart Miller, who is also Lennar’s executive chairman and has been with the company for some 40 years. The other is Jon Jaffe, who is also the company’s president. Miller’s total compensation for the fiscal year ending Nov. 2024 was valued at about $30 million and Jaffe’s, in comparison, was valued at $25 million.
The $31 billion homebuilder Lennar has been around for seven decades. Its executive chairman and co-chief executive Stuart Miller has worked for the company for more than half that, but didn’t snag the corner office until 1997. Since then, he hasn’t relinquished his place at the top of the organization.
In 2018, internal executive Rick Beckwitt replaced Miller as CEO after he spent 21 years at the helm—and Miller stuck around as executive chairman. The combined leadership combo didn’t take. Around two years later, Lennar added a third into the mix and Jon Jaffe became co-chief executive officer and co-president with Beckwitt. Jaffe and Beckwitt were supposed to split the titles and the role with Miller as executive chair, the company said, but it didn’t last long.
In 2023, Beckwitt retired as a co-CEO and co-president. But the board and Miller did not anoint Jaffe as a solo CEO. Miller remained as executive chairman and assumed the role of co-CEO in place of the executive the board hired to replace Miller a few years earlier.
Here we are in 2025 and their titles prevail, but the co-CEOs’ compensations vary. Miller’s total compensation for fiscal 2024 was valued at almost $30 million and Jaffe’s total compensation was valued at around $25 million, a proxy statement filed Feb. 28 revealed. Miller and Jaffe’s pay values both declined year-over-year when it came to the value of their total compensation. In fiscal 2023, Miller’s total compensation was valued at around $34 million, whereas Jaffe’s was about $29 million.
They both took it on the chin when it came to their annual cash bonuses. Miller and Jaffe were entitled to about $7 million and $5 million, respectively, but the board took the unusual step of exercising “negative discretion” to reduce both payouts. Accordingly, Miller took home a bonus of $1.8 million while Jaffe clocked in under a million at $873,000. The board’s compensation committee has only used negative discretion to cut cash bonuses once in the past five years in 2020. In its annual proxy report to investors, the board said the company’s pre-tax income of $5.3 billion was lower than its goal by 0.5% amid a continuation of a reduction from fiscal 2023. The board attributed the missed goal to “external factors such as continuing rising interest rates and increases to material and labor costs.”
Nonetheless, last year, the two CEOs’ total compensation was valued at almost $55 million.
The two travel on corporate aircraft, too. A decade ago, Miller entered an agreement with a Lennar subsidiary that lets him sub-lease an aircraft. A prepayment fund was established under the terms of the agreement. Miller paid the subsidiary $825,000 for his personal use of the aircraft last year. Jaffe entered into a similar agreement and for fiscal 2024, he paid the subsidiary $330,000 for his personal use of the aircraft, according to the proxy statement. Miller’s brother also entered into an agreement to use the aircraft, but didn’t during fiscal 2024.
Lennar did not respond to Fortune’s request for comment.
Miller’s son Brad Miller is a director of land acquisitions for Lennar, and for fiscal 2024, his total compensation was valued at about $464,000 accounting for his salary, a $200,000 cash bonus, stock, a car allowance, and more.
For the fiscal year ending Nov. 30, 2024, Lennar reported its homebuilding operations, which happen to be the most substantial part of its business, generated $34 billion in revenue. The company delivered around 80,000 homes for the 2024 fiscal year, an increase from a year earlier. The average sales price was $423,000 for the 2024 fiscal year, a decrease compared to the prior year.
“Our fourth quarter was a challenging quarter at Lennar, as interest rates climbed approximately 100 basis points through the quarter and further challenged affordability,” Miller said in an earnings call at the time. “Starting early in the quarter, we saw sales stall at then-existing price and incentive levels. That necessitated increased incentives, interest rate buy-downs, and price adjustments to activate sales and avoid increased inventory build-up.”
Basically, high home prices plus high mortgage rates hurt demand and slowed home sales, so Lennar hiked its incentives to salvage it.
