Kaitlan Collins' Reported CNN Salary Puts Rival Karoline Leavitt's Lavish Lifestyle To Shame

It's fairly obvious to anyone with working eyes and ears that there is no love lost between CNN Chief White House Correspondent Kaitlan Collins and White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt. Collins and Leavitt have butted heads on multiple occasions, with perhaps their most heated exchange coming in March 2025, when Leavitt voiced her refusal to take a follow-up question from Collins regarding the Signal group chat leak that put national security officials under heavy scrutiny. There may be an element of jealousy behind Leavitt's pettiness towards Collins, though. After all, while Leavitt loves to flaunt her lavish lifestyle, if reports are to be believed, it's actually Collins who's making the bigger bag — by a considerable distance, no less.

Although CNN does not publicly disclose anchor salaries, reports suggest that Collins nets a sizeable chunk of change in a given year. In a November 2024 report from The New York Post, one anonymous source claimed that Collins' annual salary was a whopping $3 million. While there's no way of knowing for sure if this is accurate, it does track with other reported salaries among CNN anchors. For instance, The Street reported in 2024 that Erin Burnett, who has been at the network since 2011 — six years longer than Collins — draws a salary of $6 million. The financial news outlet also claimed that Anderson Cooper, an even more senior anchor who's been with the network since 2001, makes $12 million a year.

One source speaking to Page Six in June 2025 even went as far as to call Collins "way overpaid" amid her then-recent purchase of a Massachusetts vacation home, adding, "CNN people are grossed out that she paid so much." With all that in mind, it seems rather safe to assume that Collins is netting at least a couple of million a year. So, how does Leavitt stack up?

In the case of Karoline Leavitt, we don't have to rely on secondhand accounts to get a general idea of what her personal finances look like. Thanks to the 2025 edition of the White House's annual report to Congress, which includes staff salaries, we actually know exactly how much she grosses in a year as press secretary. According to the report, per Axios, Leavitt is one of 33 White House staffers making a salary of $195,200 — which breaks down to nearly $16,300 per month.

To be fair to Leavitt, while that's obviously not Warren Buffett money or anything, it's certainly not chump change, either. Add that to the sizeable fortune her much-older husband Nicholas Riccio has made as a real estate developer and entrepreneur — around $6 million, according to The Irish Star – and it's safe to say that Leavitt lives rather comfortably (if her massive Washington, D.C. home didn't already give it away). So, you may be asking ... Why would she ever feel envious of CNN's Kaitlan Collins?

Well, in addition to the fact that Leavitt reportedly makes millions less than Collins, there's also the fact that Collins made the big money herself, rather than marrying into it. If your name is Karoline Leavitt, one of your biggest professional rivals financially mogging you like that has to sting just a little bit. So, maybe keep that in mind the next time Leavitt snaps at Collins for the reporter's coverage of the U.S. economy under Donald Trump, like she did in December 2025.