Elon Musk earned over 2.5 million times more than Tesla workers as CEO pay surged again

[midian182]

Winners & losers: Everything is more expensive these days, and most people's wages haven't risen at the same rate. Unless they're a CEO, that is. Company bosses now get more than ever, pushing their pay packages astronomically higher than the average person working for them. But nowhere is this gap more evident than at Tesla, where Elon Musk's compensation was 2,522,203 times the median employee's pay.

A report by the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) – the largest federation of labor unions in the United States – revealed that CEOs now receive more than 300 times the pay of working people. But that figure excludes Musk because his $158 billion compensation skews the numbers.

Including Musk, average S&P 500 CEO compensation reached $340.1 million in 2025, up roughly 1,700% from the previous year. Without Musk's Tesla pay package, the average rose 21%, from $18.9 million in 2024 to $22.8 million in 2025.

The average CEO-to-worker pay ratio across S&P 500 Index companies was 5,387-to-1 in 2025. Excluding Musk, the ratio increased from 285-to-1 in 2024 to 312-to-1 in 2025.

Musk's net worth currently stands at $823 billion. That's down from when he became the world's first trillionaire in June after SpaceX's IPO pushed his net worth to $1.1 trillion. The 2025 pay package of the world's richest person was about 14 times the combined compensation of all other S&P 500 company CEOs.

Musk's 2025 total compensation is based on the grant-date fair value of restricted Tesla stock awarded to him that same year. These stock awards ultimately could be worth up to $1 trillion if Tesla meets the various performance requirements needed for Musk to earn them

Back in 2015, the average pay of an S&P 500 CEO was $12.5 million, meaning the figure has almost doubled in a decade (excluding Musk). By comparison, average US private-sector pay increased about 45% over the decade, from roughly $52,000 a year in 2015 to $75,500 in 2025.

The AFL-CIO notes that workers' share of US national income has fallen to the lowest level since World War II. A recent report by the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that employees at Amazon and gig economy workers are increasingly dependent on food stamps and Medicaid.

The AFL-CIO argues that CEO compensation should reflect executives' actual contributions to their companies. It also says corporate success is not driven by one person alone, and that workers should receive a fair share of the value they help create.

The group believes that excessive CEO compensation contributes to growing economic inequality and creates the risk that CEOs will make short-term decisions to maximize their pay.

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Elon Musk earned over 2.5 million times more than Tesla workers as CEO pay surged again

 

[Alfonso Maruccia]

Well, he clearly earned it ./

 

[NumberNine]

corporate success is not driven by one person alone, and that workers should receive a fair share of the value they help create.

Ownership would rather light themselves on fire.

 

[FrancB]

Deserved, he's quite active on X.

 

[pnntmp]

OK, so?
How much CEOs get is determined by the shareholders or people elected by them.
That is, the employee (the CEO) gets what he negotiates with the owners (shareholders). The same happens when someone is hired to work on a gas station or to flip burgers.

CEO-to-worker pay ratio is a meaningless statistical figure.
Of course it's useful to make disciples of the religion of envy (socialism) start foaming, which I guess is the goal here, but that's all.

 

[Anton Longshot]

I'd happily pay for an extension that blocks or blanks pics of his mug.
And pay extra if it does the same with Trump pics.

Disgusting human filth.
I believe I'll be alive when these move on to their next incarnations.
Those will be Good Days. Heck I'll eat cake!

 

[BobDolesGhost]

I'm not endorsing stratospheric CEO pay, but I do wonder what affect inflation has on the % increase of CEO compensation measured here over the decade. We've had such low fed interest "free money" financing for so long and massive government spending increases (fed gov spending has doubled from 2016's $4.1 trillion to 2026's $8.5 trillion) all pumping more and more make believe fiat dollars into the economy for so long...

 

[GeoffreyA]

Of course it's useful to make disciples of the religion of envy (socialism) start foaming, which I guess is the goal here, but that's all.

It's not about envy but a sense of monstrous unfairness, even comical.

 

[ScottSoapbox]

The wild thing is that CEO pay has only kept up with inflation (the money supply is the best measure of inflation) while employees have fallen behind.

______________2015_____2025_______%_
M2 ($T)..........12.3.........22.4........+82%
CEO ($M).......12.5.........22.8........+82%
Median Emp...52000.....75500....+45%

 

[OortCloud]

Tesla will lose the battle with Chinese automotive, their AI is dogsh1t and he's a liability and all-round freak-show monster. It seems he's only liked by other racist pigs who will support anybody as long as they echo their own bigoted views. It's a sad indictment of the world we live in that such a human-horror-show should be so wealthy.

 

[Squid Surprise]

Got to love the Musk-haters on this thread… the clickbait title clearly wants it…

But the actual story is simply about CEO pay - it even goes out of its way to note that all of the stats EXCLUDE Musk’s…

As has already been mentioned, CEO:worker pay ratios are meaningless. CEO salaries are negotiated by the company that hires them - just like the “regular” workers’ salaries.

Clearly those companies feel their CEOs ARE more valuable than the average worker - who can be fired/replaced without moving the needle on company worth…

 

[pnntmp]

It's not about envy but a sense of monstrous unfairness, even comical.

"sense of monstrous unfairness" is a longer way to say "envy".

CEO pay (and any other pay) is settled in a private contract signed by both sides - which means they (both sides) consider it fair.
The senses and feelings of assorted third parties (e.g. you) in regard to that private contract are entirely irrelevant, because they are not a side.

 

[Aolish]

I feel conflicted about this, under one hand he has worked hard to get to where he's at. This is one of the things I love about our country. You get what you worked for. He just didn't sit on his laurels and got to where he's at now, he worked hard. However, I am also conflicted on how you treat your employees (I'm not criticizing him), but I believe there is a fine balance between what you give back to the people who work for you and how much you earn. By no means I'm not saying the CEO should earn less than what employees make and I'm not saying we should get equal pay to what the CEO makes, but if your earning 7-9 digits a year and your only paying your employees minimum wage then I think there might be something wrong. I don't know, that's just my opinion and I know there are A LOT of nuances that goes along with that that also needs to be considered. But all in all, any rich person who got to where they're at through hard work, resilience, spending their own money, devotion, persistency, taking risks, investing, increasing their skillset from studying hard, and trial and error, I think they earned it.

 

[hover389]

Stop the nonsense. He doesnt take any pay. Any "money" he's gaining is from the stock market and that is unrealized gains and not actually money until you sell.

 

[zanic]

"sense of monstrous unfairness" is a longer way to say "envy".

CEO pay (and any other pay) is settled in a private contract signed by both sides - which means they (both sides) consider it fair.
The senses and feelings of assorted third parties (e.g. you) in regard to that private contract are entirely irrelevant, because they are not a side.

The other workers in the company is a side that should have a say.

There needs to be a cap on salaries like in sports.

 

[maxxcool7421]

Ownership would rather light themselves on fire.

I have kerosene is they'd like help...

 

[maxxcool7421]

OK, so?
How much CEOs get is determined by the shareholders or people elected by them.
That is, the employee (the CEO) gets what he negotiates with the owners (shareholders). The same happens when someone is hired to work on a gas station or to flip burgers.

CEO-to-worker pay ratio is a meaningless statistical figure.
Of course it's useful to make disciples of the religion of envy (socialism) start foaming, which I guess is the goal here, but that's all.

your white is showing ...

 

[Squid Surprise]

The other workers in the company is a side that should have a say.

There needs to be a cap on salaries like in sports.

They do… they negotiated their own contracts - or had a union that did it for them…

And a cap would ruin workers’ salaries the same way it ruined athletes…

 

[Squid Surprise]

your white is showing ...

Your “ignorant” is showing.

 

[axiomatic13]

Yet, with all that money he remains a complete douche canoe.

 

[pnntmp]

The other workers in the company is a side that should have a say.

There needs to be a cap on salaries like in sports.

Of course workers in the company should have a say when negotiating their own salary. And they have that, so ..

 

[Plutoisaplanet]

Well, he clearly earned it ./

That's the ironic part. The article assumes Elon Musk has "earned it", but the pay package is conditional and thus he is not being paid anything (yet). The article also implies he's making that much every year, but his salary at Tesla is 0.

Musk may have gains or losses from stock ownership in the meantime, but that's not compensation. He also might only "earn" a fraction of the pay package in the end, and there's the risk of lawsuits like the last pay package (albeit far lower likelihood). Sadly, the article shows no effort to do research and simply rewrote a politically misleading source given the AFL's pro-union lobbying efforts and Tesla's lack of a union.

In fact, the AFL-CIO recommends voting for every democrat politician and no republican ones besides Rand Paul. That makes it extremely politically biased and very anti-Elon: https://aflcio.org/scorecard/legislators

 

[Burty117]

Stop the nonsense. He doesnt take any pay. Any "money" he's gaining is from the stock market and that is unrealized gains and not actually money until you sell.

Yet he’s able to use his “not actually money” as collateral for taking massive debt out to buy whatever he wants.

It’s real enough it can be used as collateral, but not real enough to be taxed, funny how that works.

 

[Mark Fuller]

your white is showing ...

Your “ignorant” is showing.

I don't know much about the man's morals at all. I guess I would in all fairness give him the benefit of the doubt until I know better. All I know is that the man is just like the rest of all of his kind. Just another soap opera, is he is just another warm body in charge of the worlds problems wih a retinue of hoods that work for him to take care of him? If any of those people were of any value to the world to really solve problems, say like an Edison, Henry Ford, George Washington Carver(included because of a white backlash comment), or what about the man MLK himself who made the supreme sacrifce. We don't appear at this time to have many of those people around anymore, on this, our eve of world collapse.

 

[Mark Fuller]

I think that most of you are of the opinion that the man needs a good douse of Kerosene and set on fire. I took economics,business and accounting courses to get my two college degrees. BS and AAS. Would anyone like to make a comment about the man that has the actual facts about the real laws of business practices that would show what he has really done beyond a shadow of a doubt. If I remember accounting and economics, the leader of a business entity has a right to make a certain amount of profit for himself. I don't see any real evidence either way that dicatates the fact the he is either good or evil. Just hearsay so far. If I remember accounting, his now net worth of nearly 1 trillion dollars probably means that most of that exists as assets, land, producion facilites, hardware marchinery and other physical assets that are used to produce what he sells to make all of the money that you are talking about. Just to say he has nearly one trillion is assets is nothing when you take into consideration the fact that he has to pay for overhead which includes workers salaries, which would have to be in the neighborhood of hundreds of billions dollars, not to mention the other regulars of overhead, (rent, cost of raw materials, water, power bills, et.al.) No one says what he has left after that. Is he a polluter? Does he waste money? Not eveyone's bright ideas turn out so well. Is he worse of an inventive failure that any of the ones who came before him are? Can you prove he is guilty of graft and corruption. If you can please do so with some factual data to prove it. $158 million on $813 billion in assets is only a fraction of !% (0.000194341943419). I am not taking up for him nor condeming him, I would just like to see something said more than hearsay. I used to have a chip on my shoulder, too, til I realized actually most people get far more that they really need to survive and be affluent. Even minimum wage is a place to stay and three squares a day and still have a good time with a six pack if you know how to spend your money.