The wage gap in the US: Musk earned an employee's annual salary every 4 seconds
In 2025, Elon Musk earned 2.5 million times more than the average Tesla employee. According to an AFL-CIO report, the income gap between top executives and workers in S&P 500 companies continues to widen significantly.
Elon Musk earned 2.5 million times more than the average Tesla employee in 2025, according to a new report highlighting the growing gap between CEO compensation and that of their employees. Musk's compensation package stands at $158.3 billion, and while it is exceptionally high and has sparked widespread public criticism, even without taking him into account, the gap between CEO and employee pay has continued to widen.
According to the report published this week by the AFL-CIO, the largest federation of labor unions in the US, excluding Musk, the average gap between CEO pay and employees at leading companies in the S&P 500 index stood at 312 to 1 last year, an increase from the 285 to 1 ratio recorded in 2024. Including Musk, the average ratio stood at 5,387 to 1.
"During 2025, Elon Musk earned the median salary of Tesla employees every 4.23 seconds, which is less time than it takes to read this sentence," the report noted. "Most CEOs of companies in the index earned more in one day than the median worker in the US earns in an entire year."
Excluding Musk, the average CEO salary stood at $22.8 million last year, up from $18.9 million in 2024. With Tesla, the average rises to $340.1 million. Furthermore, the share of workers in the US national income has fallen to its lowest level since World War II. Tesla did not respond to the report.
The report also addressed the income of US President Donald Trump in 2025. The income stood at $2.2 billion, mainly from his crypto holdings. This means he enjoyed an increase of nearly 254% compared to 2024. The median worker in the US would need 43,154 years to earn what the President earned in 2025 alone.
"This is political bribery on a scale we have not seen in our lifetime, and perhaps ever, but it is only part of the story of how CEOs and the Trump administration have tilted the economy in their favor to get rich at the expense of the working public," said Fred Redmond, the union's secretary-treasurer. "Trump's budget law, which Republicans passed in Congress last year, included sharp cuts to healthcare services and food assistance for children and families, in order to provide massive tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy."
In contrast, the report cited data highlighting the economic hardships of most Americans: 33% of the adult population has no retirement savings, 37% do not have enough money to cover a $400 emergency expense, 26% skipped medical care due to costs, and 23% of renters in the US fell behind on rent payments during the past year.
