- Elon Musk was paid 2.5 million times more than an average Tesla worker in 2025
- His compensation from the EV maker stood at $158.3 billion last year, according to a report
- Report found that Musk's pay was an extreme outlier compared to other top executives
Billionaire Elon Musk was paid 2.5 million times more than an average Tesla worker in 2025. His compensation from the EV maker stood at $158.3 billion last year, according to a report by the AFL-CIO, the largest federation of labour unions in the US. The report found that Musk's pay was an extreme outlier compared to other top executives, according to The Guardian.
Excluding Musk, CEOs of major S&P 500 companies earned an average of $22.8 million in 2025, up from $18.9 million in 2024. The average CEO-to-worker pay ratio also rose to 312:1 from 285:1 a year earlier.
When Musk's compensation is included, the average CEO pay rises sharply to $340.1 million, while the average pay gap reaches 5,387:1.
The report said that in 2025, Musk received the equivalent of the median Tesla worker's annual pay every 4.23 seconds. It also noted that most S&P 500 CEOs earned more in a single day than the median US worker earned in an entire year.
The AFL-CIO report also showed that 33% of US adults have no retirement savings, while 37% do not have enough money to cover a $400 emergency expense. About 26% said they had skipped medical care because of costs, and 23% of US renters had fallen behind on rent over the past year.
The report also looked at US President Donald Trump's income in 2025. Trump earned about $2.2 billion, largely linked to his cryptocurrency holdings. This marks a nearly 254% increase from the previous year. The report said a median US worker would need more than 43,000 years to earn that amount.
Fred Redmond, AFL-CIO's secretary-treasurer said, "This is political grift unlike what we have ever seen in our lifetimes, perhaps ever, but it only tells part of the story of how CEOs and the Trump administration has rigged our economy to enrich themselves at the expense of working people."
White House spokesperson stated, "As President Trump said, he has a lot of assets because he was a massively successful businessman prior to becoming President, which was why he was elected to office in the first place."
