September 16, 2025 | 05:20 pm
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Pope Leo XIV criticized the wealth of corporate executives, with salaries far exceeding their employees. He underscored Tesla's trillion-dollar compensation package for Elon Musk.
As reported by CNN, the statement was made by Pope Leo XIV in a media interview. Pope Leo highlighted income inequality as one of the factors behind societal polarization.
"CEOs that 60 years ago might have been making four to six times more than what the workers are receiving … it’s (now) 600 times more than the average workers are receiving," said the first Pope from America.
Pope Leo XIV also referenced news reports that Elon Musk is on track to become the world's first trillionaire. "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," he said.
Pope Leo's criticism surfaced as Tesla's board proposed a $1 trillion salary package for Elon Musk. The condition is that Elon Musk would need to grow the electric vehicle company eightfold over the next decade. Tesla is currently valued at around $1.09 trillion.
According to Fortune, although Pope Leo XIV is entitled to an annual salary of over $400,000, equivalent to that of a U.S. president and university chancellors, his concerns reflect broader worries about executive pay. Among the 100 S&P 500 companies with the lowest median worker pay, the average CEO compensation reached $17.2 million in 2024 compared to the average median worker pay of $35,570, according to the Institute for Policy Studies. The ratio is 632 to 1.
The interview quotes from Pope Leo, conducted by Elise Allen, a senior correspondent at the Catholic news site Crux, were published on Sunday, September 14, 2025. Allen interviewed Pope Leo at the end of July for her upcoming biography on the new Pope.
Pope Leo also spoke about his hopes to end the Russia-Ukraine war. However, he regretted that the United Nations had lost the ability to bring people together on multilateral issues.
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