AT&T’s Legal Chief Sees Pay Top $12 Million Amid Challenges

Longtime AT&T Inc. general counsel David McAtee II saw his pay package increase for the second straight year.

McAtee earned almost $12.4 million in total compensation last year, according to a proxy statement filed April 5. That’s up nearly 10% from the previous year.

McAtee has been involved in a wide range of issues in his nearly decade-long tenure as the telecommunications giant’s lead in-house lawyer. He handled the fallout from the company’s disclosure of payments to former President Donald Trump’s ex-personal lawyer Michael Cohen and worked on the unwinding of AT&T’s ill-fated $85 billion acquisition of Time Warner Inc.

He’s also battled cancer—AT&T’s most recent proxy includes a notation for money that McAtee received for the use of company aircraft for “flights taken for medical treatments.” That sum, included within a metric that includes additional personal benefits for AT&T executives such as life insurance premiums and matching contributions to deferral plans, is down from the previous two years.

McAtee’s pay hit a high of $18.6 million in 2020.

Last year, the bulk of his compensation was comprised of $7 million in stock awards. He also received more than $4.4 million in cash, including $1.3 million in annual base salary. McAtee currently owns $13.4 million in AT&T stock, per Bloomberg data.

AT&T is facing a putative class action lawsuit filed last week over a data breach affecting 73 million accounts, among other legal matters. The company this month announced the sale of its paid television business Sky Mexico to Grupo Televisa SAB. AT&T has sought to unload its media assets in recent years.

McAtee earned almost $11.3 million in 2022, a year in which AT&T completed its $43 billion sale of WarnerMedia LLC—owner of mass media assets like CNN, HBO, TBS, TNT, and TruTV—to what is now Warner Bros. Discovery Inc.

McAtee’s pay last year at Dallas-based AT&T topped the more than $10 million that telecommunications rival Verizon Communications Inc. disclosed it paid Craig Silliman, the company’s former general counsel.

Sillman is now president of the New York-based company’s global services business. His pay package, per a proxy statement filed March 25, increased from the $8.6 million he received in 2022. It was comprised of $7.5 million in stock awards and roughly $2.4 million in cash, including $900,000 in base salary.

Vandana Venkatesh, who succeeded Silliman as Verizon’s legal chief, wasn’t listed among the company’s six current and former highest-paid executives. Bloomberg data shows that she owns nearly $1.3 million in Verizon shares, while Silliman’s stock holdings in the company are valued at roughly $4.1 million.