Snapchat creator Evan Spiegel is the highest-paid CEO

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• Snap CEO Evan Spiegel was the highest-paid U.S. CEO in 2017, according to a new index.
• Much of his income came from a huge stock grant that vested when Snap went public in the spring of 2017.
• Snap has yet to turn a profit. It lost $720 million last year.

Snap CEO and cofounder Evan Spiegel was the best-paid U.S. CEO in 2017, according to Bloomberg's Pay Index.

The messaging mogul beat out highly paid executives from private equity groups, asset managers, Tesla, and Google to score the top spot. He made about $504 million in 2017, according to Bloomberg.

Snap had its IPO in 2017 and Spiegel was richly rewarded for it. According to SEC filings, he collected $1.2 million in salary and other compensation, but the big money came from a large stock grant - about 37 million shares of Snap vested on the IPO date. Snap opened at $11.14 per share on Thursday.

Spiegel has started to sell some of his stock. He sold more than $50 million in Snap stock in February, and $25 million in a smaller transaction in March.

His closest compensation competitors in the tech industry are Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who made $150 million in 2017, and Google CEO Sundar Pichai, who made $144 million according to the index.

Snap has yet to turn a profit. It lost $720 million last year, and concerns about slowing user growth have dogged the company for the past year.

Check out the entire list of CEO compensation here.