Coverage spread: 2 sources — 1 left · 1 center
Lean ratings via AllSides / Media Bias-Fact-Check. How this works.
Where they agree
- Elon Musk’s Tesla pay package, valued at $158.3 billion in 2025, was roughly 2.5 million times the average Tesla worker’s pay.
- Both cite the AFL-CIO’s executive pay watch report as the source, and both note average S&P 500 CEO pay (excluding Musk) hit a record $22.8 million, up from $18.9 million in 2024.
- Both quote AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer Fred Redmond and note Musk’s package is being used by other corporate boards as a benchmark for setting pay.
- Both note the deal could eventually be worth over $1 trillion if Tesla hits ambitious market cap and sales targets, and that some investors opposed it.
Where they differ
- The Guardian focuses heavily on the report’s broader inequality data — Trump’s $2.2 billion income, workers’ shrinking share of national income, and statistics on Americans’ financial hardship — while Forbes omits these entirely.
- Forbes emphasizes Musk’s personal net worth ranking ($870.6 billion, world’s richest) and its recent volatility, including his “Former trillionaire” comment, details The Guardian does not include.
- The Guardian includes a White House response defending Trump’s finances and conflict-of-interest claims; Forbes does not address Trump’s income at all.
- Forbes frames the story primarily as a CEO-pay-benchmarking phenomenon driven by Musk, while The Guardian frames it more as evidence of a systemic, worsening wealth gap affecting ordinary workers.
Elon Musk was paid roughly 2.5 million times more than Tesla’s average worker in 2025, driven by a $158.3 billion compensation package, according to the AFL-CIO’s annual executive pay watch report. The findings show average CEO pay at S&P 500 companies hit a record high, with the union federation’s researchers saying Musk’s massive deal is now shaping how other corporate boards set executive pay.
How much did Musk actually get paid, and how does it compare to workers?
The AFL-CIO calculates Musk received the median Tesla worker’s annual pay roughly every 4.23 seconds throughout 2025 — faster than it takes to read that sentence. Across the S&P 500, the report finds a majority of CEOs earned more in a single day than the typical American worker earned in an entire year. Musk’s pay deal, tied to Tesla stock and performance targets, could eventually be worth more than $1 trillion if the company hits goals including an $8.5 trillion market valuation within a decade and selling 12 million additional vehicles. The package was approved by Tesla shareholders but drew opposition from some investors, including the firm managing Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, which cited concerns about dilution and “key person risk.”
What happened to CEO pay excluding Musk?
Even setting Musk aside, the gap widened. The average ratio of CEO to worker pay at top S&P 500 firms rose to 312-to-1 in 2025, up from 285-to-1 the year before. Average CEO compensation excluding Musk climbed 21% to $22.8 million, up from $18.9 million in 2024 — the highest figure the AFL-CIO has recorded since it began tracking this data in the 1990s. Fold Musk’s package back in, and the average CEO pay ratio jumps to 5,387-to-1, with average compensation across the S&P 500 reaching $340.1 million.
Why does the report link Musk’s deal to rising pay elsewhere?
AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer Fred Redmond told Reuters that Musk’s Tesla package “changes the dynamic when other CEO compensation plans come up,” and that corporate boards now use it as a benchmark. The implication is that an extreme outlier deal doesn’t stay isolated — it resets expectations across boardrooms, contributing to the broader climb in executive pay even at companies with no connection to Tesla.
What does the report say about Trump’s income?
The AFL-CIO also tracked Donald Trump’s 2025 income, estimating it at $2.2 billion, largely from his crypto holdings — a jump of nearly 254% from 2024. By the report’s math, a median US worker would need about 43,154 years to earn what Trump made in a single year. Redmond called this “political grift unlike what we have ever seen,” and tied it to the administration’s budget bill, which he said cut healthcare and food assistance while delivering tax cuts to corporations and wealthy individuals. A White House spokesperson responded that Trump’s wealth stems from his business career prior to office and that his assets are held in “fully discretionary accounts managed by independent third-party financial institutions,” with no conflicts of interest.
What does the report say about ordinary workers’ finances?
The report frames the pay gap against a backdrop of financial strain: workers’ share of US national income has fallen to its lowest level since World War II. It cites data showing 33% of US adults have no retirement savings, 37% couldn’t cover an unexpected $400 expense, 26% have skipped medical care due to cost, and 23% of renters have fallen behind on payments in the past year.
How does Musk’s net worth fit into this?
Separately, Musk remains the world’s richest person, with a fortune estimated at $870.6 billion, more than double that of the next two richest people, Larry Page and Jeff Bezos. His wealth peaked near $1.45 trillion after Tesla’s trading milestones before falling by roughly half following a drop in SpaceX-linked share value; Musk himself referred to being a “(Former) trillionaire” in a social media post. His SpaceX compensation includes similarly ambitious targets, such as establishing a Mars colony of at least a million people and building space-based data centers with enormous power capacity.
What comes next?
Tesla did not respond to requests for comment on the report. The AFL-CIO publishes this analysis annually to track executive pay trends, and this year’s edition suggests the gap between CEO and worker compensation — already at multi-decade highs — is likely to keep widening as boards look to outlier deals like Musk’s as a reference point.
Sources
Featured photo: Steve Jurvetson from Menlo Park, USA via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)