S&P 500 pay set a record in 2025, led by Musk, as investors torched the biggest awards
Average pay for S&P 500 chief executives climbed 21 percent to US$22.8m in 2025 even after stripping out Tesla and SpaceX chief Elon Musk, the highest level the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations has recorded since it began tracking the figure in the 1990s.
The labour federation released the data on Thursday in its annual Executive Paywatch report.
Excluding Musk, the average ratio of CEO-to-worker pay across S&P 500 companies rose to 312 to 1, up from 285 to 1 in 2024.
The AFL-CIO valued Musk's 2025 Tesla stock award at US$158.3bn on a grant-date basis, a package that could reach US$1tn if the company meets its performance targets.
Folding that figure in, the federation said, average S&P 500 CEO pay reached US$340.1m, roughly a 1,700 percent jump over the previous year, and the average pay ratio reached 5,387 to 1.
The federation excludes him from its headline numbers on the grounds that his award alone would distort the totals.
Average pay rose 21 percent even with Musk's award removed.
The AFL-CIO argues his deal now functions as a benchmark other boards reach toward: his pay "changes the dynamic when other CEO compensation plans come up, boards use it as a reference," the federation's secretary-treasurer, Fred Redmond, told Reuters in a telephone interview.
Musk became the world's first trillionaire in June through his SpaceX stake.
Average support for advisory "say on pay" votes at S&P 500 companies held at 90.6 percent through late June, up from 89.4 percent for all of 2025, according to compensation consultants Semler Brossy.
The firm found that special awards, usually pitched as one-offs, remain a contested issue. Goldman Sachs paid CEO David Solomon US$118.9m last year, including a retention grant, and only 71 percent of shares cast backed it, below average.
"We're very pleased with the strong supermajority this vote received," Goldman spokesman Tony Fratto told Reuters.
Shareholders went further with real estate investment trust Welltower, where just 19 percent supported a US$821m package for chief executive Shankh Mitra.
The company said Mitra collects the full sum only by hitting every target.
A spokesperson said its board "remain committed to engaging with shareholders to gather their feedback and understand their perspectives."
In the United States, the Securities and Exchange Commission proposed in May to cut executive compensation disclosure for companies with a public float below US$2bn and to drop mandatory say-on-pay votes for them, with final rules possible by the end of 2026.
In Canada, amendments to the Canada Business Corporations Act would require public federally incorporated companies to put their approach to executive and director pay to an annual non-binding shareholder vote, though the measure has not yet taken effect pending regulations.
Many large Canadian issuers, including the banks, already run such votes voluntarily.
Canada's 100 highest-paid CEOs earned an average of $16.2m in 2024, a record and about 248 times the average worker's pay, according to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.
Shopify's Tobias Lütke topped the list at $205.5m, the largest single-year package the centre has recorded.
"The top CEOs make $7,812 an hour, so it only takes a little over eight hours to make the $65,548 annual pay of the average worker," senior economist David Macdonald said, as reported by Lethbridge News Now.
The centre has called for higher taxes on top earners, though the most recent federal move on high-income taxation was reversed when Prime Minister Mark Carney cancelled a planned capital gains change last March.
The AFL-CIO warned in the report that outsized pay can push executives toward short-term decisions "even if it hurts the company's long-term health."
The report noted that 37 percent of adults could not cover a US$400 emergency expense.
As per the report, employees at Amazon, Dollar Tree, FedEx, McDonald's, and Walmart rank among the largest users of public assistance.
