A report by the AFL-CIO labor federation highlights a figure that makes the contrast between the corporate elite and workers in the United States even more visible: Elon Musk’s compensation at Tesla during 2025 was about 2.5 million times higher than the pay of the company’s average employee.
Musk’s package and its effect on pay statistics
According to the report, Musk’s compensation package reached $158.3 billion in 2025. That amount significantly pushed up the average gap between corporate executives and ordinary staff at the largest U.S. companies.
The data show that, without including Musk, executives at S&P 500 companies earned an average of 312 times more than the average worker. A year earlier, that ratio was 285 to 1, showing that the gap has widened further.
When Tesla is included, the ratio explodes
When Musk’s compensation at Tesla is also counted, the average ratio between CEO pay and worker pay rises to 5,387 to 1, according to the AFL-CIO. The report uses this as an indicator of the growing concentration of income at the top of the corporate pyramid.
According to the same data, the average compensation of an S&P 500 CEO, excluding Musk, reached $22.8 million in 2025, up from $18.9 million a year earlier. The Guardian has reported that, with Musk’s extraordinary package included, that average rises to $340.1 million.
How much a worker earns compared with the top
The AFL-CIO stresses that, during 2025 alone, Musk was receiving the equivalent of the average Tesla employee’s salary every few seconds. The federation adds that most S&P 500 CEOs earned in a single day more than the average American worker earns in an entire year.
The report links this to rising income inequality in the U.S. economy. According to the cited figures, labor’s share of U.S. national income has fallen to its lowest level since the period after World War II.
Donald Trump is also included in the report
The report also analyzes the income of U.S. President Donald Trump during 2025. According to the cited data, he secured about $2.2 billion, mainly from his cryptocurrency holdings.
That amount, according to the report, represents an increase of about 254% compared with 2024. To reach the same level of income, the average American worker would need about 43,154 years.
AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Fred Redmond has criticized this concentration of wealth, arguing that the economic policies of the Trump administration and practices at the top of corporations have favored the rich at the expense of workers.
The report’s figures are not just financial records. They expose a pattern in which pay at the top rises at extreme rates, while ordinary work remains ever farther from the centers of profit.