CEO Pay Hits Record as Musk Deals Spread

Average pay for S&P 500 chief executives hit a record $22.8 million in 2025, up 21% from $18.9 million a year earlier — the highest figure since the AFL-CIO began tracking executive compensation in the 1990s, according to its Executive Paywatch report released this week.

That number excludes Elon Musk. Include his Tesla package and the average S&P 500 CEO pay figure jumps to $340.1 million.

Musk was paid more than 2.5 million times what Tesla's average worker made in 2025, the report found. The union federation says his deal has become a benchmark other boards now measure against.

The Numbers

Excluding Musk, the average ratio of CEO pay to worker pay at the top S&P 500 companies was 312 to 1 in 2025, up from 285 to 1 in 2024. With Musk included, the average ratio was 5,387 to 1.

Musk's 2025 Tesla compensation was valued at $158.3 billion. The broader shareholder-approved package could be worth more than $1 trillion if Tesla hits its targets.

"In 2025, Elon Musk received the median Tesla worker's pay every 4.23 seconds — less time than it takes to read this sentence," the report states. It also found that a majority of S&P 500 CEOs made more in a single day than the median U.S. worker made in a year, and that workers' share of national income has fallen to its lowest level since World War II.

The Musk Effect

Reuters, citing the AFL-CIO data, reported that Musk's trillion-dollar Tesla deal has become a "reference" point for other firms writing executive pay plans.

"It changes the dynamic when other CEO compensation plans come up," AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer Fred Redmond told Reuters. "Boards use it as a reference."

Tesla shareholders approved Musk's package last year. It is tied to milestones including a Tesla market valuation above $8.5 trillion within 10 years and the sale of 12 million more vehicles. His SpaceX package carries comparable conditions — among them a permanent human colony on Mars of at least 1 million people and non-Earth-based data centers delivering 100 terawatts of compute a year.

The Tesla award drew opposition from some investors, including the manager of Norway's sovereign wealth fund, which said it was "concerned about the award, dilution and lack of mitigation of key person risk."