Pope Leo XIV, trying to steer attention away from President Donald Trump’s never-ending cover-up of crimes by himself and his billionaire backers, sharply condemned Tesla’s plan to make Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire.
The company’s board approved a $970 billion annual salary for Musk. Already the world’s richest person, the tech mogul poured hundreds of millions of dollars into Trump’s re-election campaign and for the first months of the new Trump administration, was in charge of DOGE (the Department of Government Efficiency).
The Chicago-born pontiff, by contrast, grew up in modest circumstances on the city’s South Side. He said that at a time when working-class people the world over are under economic and political attack, the Musk salary reflects a “loss of the value of human life, of the family, of the value of society.”
Leo, formerly known as Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, discussed Musk’s pay in an interview published Sunday in the Catholic newspaper Crux. “Yesterday, the news [arrived] that Elon Musk is going to be the first trillionaire in the world,” Leo said. “What does this mean when money becomes the most important value in human life?”
Some U.S. lawmakers have an answer to that. People like Sen. Bernie Sanders, Ind-Vt. and Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich. know that self-enrichment, even at the cost of impoverishing the working-class majority, is the goal of the billionaires and Trump, whom they put in office.
Sanders and Tlaib have introduced legislation to crack down on outlandish CEO pay and the corporate greed that drives it—by hefty taxes on firms that OK such payouts.
Their bill cannot stop, however, the self-enrichment of Trump, who recently pocketed billions of dollars from a private deal he made with leaders of the United Arab Emirates after a trip there. Use of U.S. diplomacy for personal enrichment on any scale is an impeachable offense, but the Republican congressional majorities have shown they have no interest in pursuing an investigation.
Sanders and Tlaib unveiled their measure on Sept. 15, just days after the Tesla board reportedly approved the $975 billion paycheck for the firm’s founder.
The size of the paycheck was something that particularly irked the pontiff. “If a big paycheck is the only thing that has any value in the world anymore, we’re in big trouble,” the Pope said.
The Sanders-Tlaib “Tax Excessive CEO Pay Act,” backed by four senators and 22 representatives, all of them Democrats, would hit the firms that pay such outlandish sums right in the wallet.
If firms pay their executives more than 50 times the wages of their workers, they’d pay a 0.5% penalty on their profits if the CEO-to-worker pay ratio was between 50-1 and 100-1. Wider ratios would bring larger penalties, Sanders and Tlaib said.
That includes privately held companies, such as hedge funds, they added. The bill would also force more disclosure in detail of payments to contractors and other methods companies use to disguise pay to their top bosses.
Labor backs the bill
The AFL-CIO leads the unions backing the bill. Others are the Communications Workers and their Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, the Service Employees, Jobs With Justice, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, National Nurses United, the United Electrical Workers, the State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), and the United Auto Workers.
Other backers include the Institute for Policy Studies, Oxfam, Americans for Financial Reform, and Public Citizen.
“If Elon Musk receives the full $975 billion compensation package that Tesla’s board proposed, Tesla could owe up to $100 billion more in taxes over the next decade under this legislation,” the lawmakers’ fact sheet adds.
The Sanders-Tlaib bill continues a career-long crusade by Sanders, the veteran Vermont legislator and avowed socialist, against both corporate greed in general and the yawning chasm between CEO compensation and worker pay in particular. For Sanders, both are obscene.
“We can no longer tolerate a rigged economy that enables the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, to become the first trillionaire while 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck and millions work longer hours for lower wages,” he said.
“It is unacceptable that the CEOs of the largest low-wage corporations make more than 630 times what their average workers make. This is not only morally obscene but also insane economic policy. No society can survive when one man becomes a trillionaire while the working class is unable to afford basic necessities.
“At a time of record-breaking income and wealth inequality, we must demand the wealthiest people and most profitable corporations in America finally pay their fair share of taxes and treat all employees with the respect and dignity they deserve. That’s precisely what this legislation begins to do.”
“Working people are sick and tired of corporate greed,” said Tlaib. Overall, she added, CEOs now make 290 times as much as their average workers. “It’s disgraceful that corporations continue to rake in record profits by exploiting the labor of their workers. Every worker deserves a living wage and human dignity on the job It’s time to make the rich pay their fair share.”
The yawning gap between CEO pay and worker pay is exactly what the Sanders-Tlaib bill aims to curb. Data from the AFL-CIO’s Executive Paywatch study on CEO pay at prominent low-wage firms, such as Walmart and McDonald’s, reinforces their point.
Starbucks, which is also known for its strident anti-worker stand and union-busting tactics—as well as its low pay for baristas—saw CEO Brian Niccol receive a rate of $95.8 million in yearly compensation, even though he held the post only part of 2024. That’s 6,666 times a barista’s median pay, AFL-CIO’s Paywatch revealed.
“In 2024, Walmart’s CEO made $27.4 million—930 times more than the median Walmart worker’s pay of $29,469,” the fact sheet adds. “JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon made $37.7 million—348 times more than his average employee. Home Depot’s CEO made $15.6 million—443 times more than the company’s median pay. And at Coca-Cola, the CEO took home $28 million—1,980 times more than the median worker, earning just $14,144.”
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