CEO Peter Beck received total compensation of $6.83 million in 2025, which is modest relative to his role as founder and chief executive of a $38.5 billion market cap aerospace company, and well within reasonable benchmarks for a CEO at this company size. The compensation structure is predominantly variable and equity-based — base salary of $800,000 represents less than 12% of total compensation — and the equity grant is tied to multi-year time-based vesting aligned with continued service. Rocket Lab's 3-year stock return of over 1,600% massively outpaces its peers, providing strong pay-for-performance alignment; no discretionary cash bonuses were paid, no equity was granted to other named executives in 2025, and prior-year shareholder support was a healthy 80%.

The non-audit fees (primarily business due diligence services for acquisitions, totaling $454,308) represent approximately 11.8% of the core audit fees ($3,855,248), which is well below the 50% threshold that would raise independence concerns. Auditor tenure is not disclosed in the filing, so the tenure trigger cannot be applied and the policy default is to vote FOR. Deloitte & Touche LLP is a Big 4 firm fully appropriate for a company of Rocket Lab's size and complexity.