President Trump said he would support dramatically slashing the salary of the head of the Tennessee Valley Authority, the largest U.S. public power company, who he said earned a “ridiculous” amount of money.
He “has to be the highest paid man in any government,” Trump said during a coronavirus task force briefing Wednesday. “I don’t know the gentleman, but he’s got a heck of a job.”
Asked if he would support cutting the Tennessee Valley Authority CEO’s salary as part of any forthcoming infrastructure package, Trump said he’d support “reducing it by a lot.”
Jeff Lyash, who joined the TVA as president and CEO last year, earned total compensation of $8.16 million in 2019, according to a report from the Chattanooga Times Free Press, which cited a TVA filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. That included a nearly $1.8 million recruitment and relocation incentive, the report said.
Trump, during his comments Wednesday, also suggested he was still frustrated over a tiff between the TVA and the White House prior to Lyash assuming the role of CEO.
Last year, TVA’s board voted to approve the closure of two coal plants, the Kentucky Paradise No. 3 plant and the Tennessee Bull Run plant, bucking direct requests from Trump and Senate Leader Mitch McConnell to keep the plants running.
The decision to close the plants wasn’t “a decision about whether coal is good or bad,” Lyash told the Examiner in an interview in September.
Trump, though, hasn’t let it go. “When we want them to do something, they’re not there for us. That’s not good,” he said Wednesday. “I’ve been waiting for somebody to ask me about that. It’s been bothering me for a long time.”
