America is in the middle of a tech-fueled wealth boom: companies have shattered market-cap records, while soaring stock briefly minted the world’s first trillionaire. Now, some CEOs leading the world’s biggest companies are making money so fast that they can earn their workers’ annual pay in a matter of seconds. Elon Musk earned the typical Tesla worker’s annual pay every 4.23 seconds.
The richest person in the world and CEO of tech and EV giant Tesla received $158.3 billion in compensation last year. His pay was 2,522,203 times higher than the median Tesla’s employee pay of $57,243 annually, according to an executive paywatch analysis from America’s largest federation of labor unions, AFL-CIO.
During a typical 30-minute commute, he’s already banked $24.36 million in compensation.
Brandon Rees, lead researcher for executive paywatch at AFL-CIO, tells Fortune the organization has been tracking CEO pay levels since 1997, and “Elon Musk’s gargantuan 2025 pay package at Tesla is unlike anything we have seen before.”
“Our economy is increasingly out of balance because billionaires like Elon Musk are taking a greater share of the economic pie while working people are struggling to make ends meet,” he added.
