Pope's Pop at Musk

 

St Peter's Rome
William White Warren (1832-1915)
Photo Credit: Victoria Art Gallery [CC BY-NC-ND]

The Pope has condemned the huge salaries of top chief executives, citing Elon Musk's possible rise to trillionaire status as a concern.

In his first interview since being elected in May, the pontiff also said the UN was unable to resolve the world's crises, admitted he was on a steep learning curve as a diplomat and revealed who he would support at the World Cup next year. [Peru and Italy]

Since his election, the pope, who was born Robert Prevost in Chicago, has made clear his fears for the plight of low earners - taking the name Leo in honour of Leo X111, the 19th-century pontiff who campaigned for better wages and union rights for factory workers.

In excerpts from his interview, given in July and published yesterday on the Catholic news website Crux, the first American leader of the world's 1.4 billion Catholics said he was worried about the world  "the value of human life, of the family and the value of society". He asked: "If we loose the sense of those values, what matters any more?"

The Pope, who turned 70 yesterday, said the key was the widening wage gap between rich and poor. "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 he had heard that "Elon Musk is going to be the first trillionaire in the world".  He added: "What does that mean and what's that about? If that is the only thing that has value any more, then we're in big trouble."

The board of Musk's car firm, Tesla, proposed a $1 trillion compensation plan for him - the largest corporate pay package in history.

(Tom Kington, The Times, 2025)

Are there any political leaders who have spoken out publicly about the huge salaries of chief executives? Which other leaders have mentioned that many of these executives are receiving hundreds of times times more than those received by the average worker? Why is it left to the Pope to highlight these immense sums of money? On doing some research, the only present  leader who has expressed concern was the President of  Brazil - Lula da Silva. To his credit the former Conservative Prime Minister of the UK, Rishi Sunak, urged high earning executives to "embrace pay restraint" in the context of soaring inflation. Unfortunately his words did not result in any action!