If Tesla CEO Elon Musk meets certain milestones for the tech company’s market share and operational performance over the next decade, he’ll get a $1 trillion compensation package — worth more than the GDP of Switzerland or Poland. Such goals include more than doubling the number of Tesla vehicles delivered, from 8 million to 20 million, and raising operating profit from $16.6 billion to $400 billion, according to AP.
Even as the tech billionaire celebrates the shareholder vote, critics are viewing the recent deal less as an reward for innovation or leadership and more of a symptom of out-of-control inequality.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., a staunch opponent of billionaires, called the move by Tesla “obscene.”
“If you’re Elon Musk, the richest man alive, Tesla gives you a $1 trillion pay package and Trump gives you a huge tax break,” Sanders wrote on X. “If you’re a poor kid on SNAP, Trump appeals a court decision that would have prevented you from going hungry.”
Sen. Roland Gutierrez, D-Texas, called Musk out for wanting “to become a trillionaire off the backs of American taxpayers,” while blaming Tesla shareholders.
“How do we make it in America with greedy hogs like this, that just want to screw us, over and over again?” Gutierrez said in a video on Thursday.
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Sam Abuelsamid, an analyst at research firm Telemetry who has been covering Tesla for nearly two decades, blasted shareholders for putting so much “absurd” value in Musk.
“He has hundreds of billions of dollars already in the company and to say that he won’t stay without a trillion is ridiculous,” Abuelsamid said.
Prior to the deal being approved, concern about Musk becoming a trillionaire was still present, even at the highest office in the Vatican.
Pope Leo XIV expressed his worries about a “wider gap” in income between the rich and poor around the world, and mentioned Musk by name.
“Yesterday the news that Elon Musk is going to be the first trillionaire in the world,” the pope said in an September interview with Crux. “If that is the only thing that has value anymore, then we’re in big trouble.”
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