On August 13 local time, the AFL-CIO released its latest annual executive compensation report, with Tesla CEO Elon Musk being the most prominent figure.
Musk's total annual compensation from Tesla in 2025, calculated on an accounting basis, amounted to $158.359 billion, which is 2.52 million times the median annual total employee compensation of $62,800 at Tesla.
As a result, the organization had to compile a separate annual executive compensation report excluding Musk, otherwise the data would have been severely skewed.
After all, Musk is the world's first trillionaire, with compensation 14 times higher than the combined total of all other CEOs of S&P 500 component companies.
His 2025 compensation exceeded Tesla's total sales revenue for all products in 2025, was 41 times Tesla's net profit for that year, and surpassed the GDP of two-thirds of the countries worldwide.
According to Tesla's filings with the SEC, as of December 31, 2025, the total number of employees at Tesla and its subsidiaries used for the pay ratio calculation was 135,600, including full-time, part-time, and temporary employees, but excluding personnel working through staffing agencies. The median employee compensation at Tesla was $62,786.
During the same period, Musk's total annual compensation at Tesla was $158.359009867 billion, resulting in a CEO-to-median-employee pay ratio of 2.522 million to 1, calculated according to U.S. securities regulations.
It is important to note that $158.359 billion does not equate to the actual cash income Musk received in 2025.
Tesla explained in its annual report that this figure largely stems from the accounting valuation of the 2025 CEO performance award, and the related shares had not yet vested at the time of the relevant document disclosure.
Meanwhile, Tesla's disclosed 2025 compensation also included a one-time bonus of approximately $26.1 billion, which was fully forfeited in April 2026. Therefore, there is a significant difference between the "total annual compensation" in this report and the actual compensation realized.