The colourful private equity tycoon Stephen Schwarzman was America's best-paid corporate boss with a staggering package of $702m (£424m) last year as he received a huge chunk of stock negotiated at the time of the flotation of his Blackstone empire in 2007.

Despite a dismal economic backdrop of soaring unemployment, failing high-street businesses and plunging stockmarkets, Schwarzman, 62, easily outshone America's second-best-paid boardroom leader, the Oracle software boss Larry Ellison, who earned $557m.

Schwarzman hit the headlines at the height of a private equity boom two years ago by throwing a lavish $3m birthday party for himself in a historic Manhattan armoury decorated to resemble his Park Avenue apartment. His Blackstone group has a $92bn investment portfolio including the Hilton hotel chain, United Biscuits, CenterParcs, and Cineworld cinemas.

Almost all of Schwarzman's remuneration came in the form of shares. At the time of Blackstone's public offering, Schwarzman and his co-founders agreed to swap their partnerships for stock ownership whereby equity vested gradually over a four-year period.

A Blackstone spokesman contended that this did not count as remuneration in the conventional sense, and that Schwarzman should not be at top of the rankings compiled by the Corporate Library, an independent research organisation: "It's absurd and it's a fundamental misunderstanding of accounting and of compensation."

The top echelons of high-rolling chief executives were dominated by the bosses of energy companies, which prospered as commodity prices soared last summer. Seven of the top 10 earning US bosses ran petroleum, mining or fuel corporations.

Occidental Petroleum's chief, Ray Irani, received $222m, boosted by $184m of gains on stock options and a $900,000 bonus for cutting costs. His company has agreed to adopt a 'say on pay' resolution which will allow investors an annual vote on executive remuneration from 2010.

Elsewhere in the energy field, Hess Corporation's boss, John Hess, took home $159m, Ultra Petroleum's chief, Michael Watford, got $116m and Chesapeake Energy's chief executive, Aubrey McClendon, scooped $114m.

Tenth in the table was Michael Jeffries, the head of the fashion retailer Abercrombie & Fitch, who got $71m. Known for their thumping music and scantily clad staff, Abercrombie's clothes stores have proven relatively robust in the recession., although the chain made news in Britain this week when a disabled student won a wrongful dismissal tribunal. Riam Dean, 22, argued that Abercrombie bosses banished her to a stockroom because her wish to wear a cardigan to cover her prosthetic arm did not fit with a London store's 'look policy'.

The remuneration rankings came out at the height of a row over rewards in the US. The Obama administration has appointed a 'pay czar' to rule on pay packages at Wall Street banks bailed out by the government. The House of Representatives recently backed the introduction of British-style shareholder votes on pay at companies across the US business landscape.