The Pope Says He’s Concerned About How Much Money CEOs Like Elon Musk Make
The new Pope, Pope Leo XIV, has spoken out about the income gap between workers and the wealthiest, specifically citing controversial businessman Elon Musk and his recently announced nearly $1 trillion pay-package. Speaking to Crux Now, Pope Leo said a “very significant” issue today is the “continuously wider gap between the income levels of the working class and the money that the wealthiest receive.”
“For example, CEOs that 60 years ago might have been making four to six times more than what the workers are receiving, the last figure I saw, it’s 600 times more than what average workers are receiving,” he said.
Pope Leo went on to cite Tesla’s recent announcement that it would pay Musk up to about $1 trillion, making him the first (publicly known) trillionaire in the world. “What does that mean and what’s that about? If that is the only thing that has value anymore, then we’re in big trouble,” Pope Leo said.
Tesla’s board recently approved a performance-based compensation plan for Musk, the company’s CEO, that would pay him around $975 billion if he can drive Tesla’s revenue up from where to stands today, at about $1 trillion, to $8.5 trillion. Musk would have to achieve various other milestones to get the full payout.
Pope Leo XIV is the first Pope from the United States. His Papacy began in May this year following the death of Pope Francis in April. Pope Francis also spoke out about the problems of growing income inequality and how people are being left behind. “The world is rich, and yet the number of poor people is swelling all around us,” Pope Francis said in 2020.
Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Darrell West told NPR recently that income inequality is “completely out of control” and that the US “actually has its worst income inequality in the last century” right now. The effects of people like Musk and others holding so much wealth are numerous and significant, West said.
“We are moving from being a democracy to becoming an oligarchy just because we have a bunch of billionaires who already have gone into government,” West explained. “We have very wealthy people outside of government who have extraordinary access to the top of government. It’s affecting tax policy, education policy and health care policy. So the risk is that America may end up being in a system that promotes the interests of a few and ignores the interests of everybody else.”
The issue of income inequality in the context of gaming came up recently following Microsoft’s latest round of mass layoffs and wider cuts, including at Xbox. Against that backdrop, Stephen Totilo of Game File reported that Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s compensation for the latest fiscal year was $79.1 million, compared to the median annual compensation of a Microsoft worker of $193,744.
