Hardly any executive is just getting paid 7m in cash. They are typically paid in financial instruments that are time locked for several years. The media however, will go bananas on reporting about how they are paid crazy amounts when these instruments are finally unlocked, ignoring the tax implications, the lack liquidity and massive risk involved, and also just how much the rest of the market has increased during the time period of those instruments being locked.

When you pay yours executives a modest amount using such a method, it's often very feasible for this to be a massive windfall at the time of maturity (e.g. $1 options becoming $6, etc.).