The man who will set the pay for top executives at the seven largest firms rescued by federal bailout money spoke about the power of his position at a talk at the Grange Hall Sunday night, as he prepared to review pay plans from his West Tisbury home.

Kenneth Feinberg gave no indication of what kind of cuts could be expected for executives at the troubled companies — some of whom have contracts that pay tens of millions of dollars annually — but he said one possibility is structuring compensation so executives get a larger percentage of equity versus cash. That, he said, might encourage performance related to the overall health of the company.

Mr. Feinberg was appointed by the Obama administration June 10 to the position as special master for compensation, tasked with setting the compensation for the top 25 executives at the seven largest companies remaining in the government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program, which are: Citigroup, Bank of America, American International Group, General Motors, Chrysler Group, Chrysler Financial and GMAC.

He said he had yet to open the pay proposals for the 150 executives under his jurisdiction, which those companies were required to submit by Friday. However, after weeks of talks with representatives from the companies, he said he had a firm idea of what would be included.

He now has 60 days to accept or reject the pay plans. His decision is final, and the companies will have no recourse for appeal, he said.

“I don’t have the power to determine pay for every corporate employee, I’m sharply circumscribed,” he said.

His power does, however, include the authority to pursue so-called claw-back money. That is, he can seek money back from executives whose contracts were signed prior to the enactment of the federal bailout program or the statute that created Mr. Feinberg’s position.

“I have the discretion to attempt to recover compensation already paid by any company, I have the right to try and get some of that money back,” he said.

Though he cannot void pre-existing contracts, his unusually powerful role in setting salaries going forward puts him in a strong position to negotiate retroactively.

“The sanctity of the contract is the essence of our economy. Whether the contract is valid, I have the ability to examine,” he said.

Whether or not and to what extent he will pursue claw-back payment he hasn’t decided. It would certainly help, he said, if the salaries relate to current employees rather than, say, those busily spending the money on the Italian Riviera.

“I don’t know if it is a good idea for the government to become a collector,” he said.

Mr. Feinberg also said he hasn’t yet decided what information to release publicly on the salaries.

“There’s a tension between not wanting to be specific, and trying to figure out a balance between that and against the public’s right to know. Is it redacting the names, fudging some of the numbers?” he said.

Mr. Feinberg has a history of public service jobs that have involved difficult ethical quandaries. Most notably he was in charge of the 9/11 victim compensation fund. Awarding money to the families of victims of the disaster, he was in charge of effectively putting a price on the lives of victims and compensating the families in order to avoid litigation. Only two cases remain in litigation in New York. He wrote about his experience in a book titled What Is Life Worth?: The Unprecedented Effort to Compensate the Victims of 9/11.

He is chief administrator of the Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund, which offered compensation to victims of the Virginia Tech shootings.

In the past he was a central arbiter in cases involving compensation for victims of Agent Orange, asbestos, and of a birth control device that injured more than 200,000 women.

He also helped determine the fair market value of footage of the Kennedy assassination captured by Abraham Zapruder and ultimately acquired by the government.

He explained his history of performing such tasks by the fact that leading members of the government of the day had asked, calls which he has found difficult to ignore.

“When Secretary Geithner asked me, I pretty much had to say yes,” he said.

He said that, at least in the case of the 9/11 fund, his law degree was not often much use — that a divinity degree would have been more helpful in dealing with the grief he confronted — but that the compensation position, while important, is mundane by comparison.

Those in attendance had some suggestions for Mr. Feinberg on how to approach executive pay.

Professor Stephen Pollock, an applied mathematician and professor emeritus at the University of Michigan, challenged the assumption that the salaries should remain at market rate.

Mr. Feinberg said that company representatives have argued for the pay plans to remain competitive, to keep talent in the company.

But Mr. Pollock, a seasonal resident of Chappaquiddick, wondered whether there was any qualitative data to show that those being paid more were outperforming those working elsewhere for less.

“I assume you have a staff that’s looking at this,” he added.

Mr. Feinberg acknowledged it was an interesting question, as he did of another from an audience member who suggested adopting an aggregated system of pay across the seven companies along the lines of major league baseball.

Though Mr. Feinberg voiced his disapproval of the authoritarian undertones in the “pay czar” moniker often used to describe his post, he warmed to the description offered by Finbarr O’Connor, Arcadia University philosophy professor, at the talk.

“The conventional thing is to commiserate with you, but I think your task is an absolutely enviable one,” said Mr. O’Connor, to gestures of encouragement from the special master, “I would give my left arm to do it. Your position is close to perfect justice . . . You’re, more or less, Plato’s philosopher king.”