Elon Musk’s compensation at least 40,000 times more than median Tesla worker

Elon Musk has come under recent scrutiny from the SEC for some ill-advised tweets, from shareholders about closing stores, and even paparazzis for his relationship to indie musician Grimes.

Those blows were probably softened by his $2.28 billion compensation last fiscal year from Tesla. That means his compensation is 40,668 times more than the median Tesla worker’s, which is about $56,200, according to Bloomberg.

Tesla has about 48,800 employees, the news outlet reported. The majority of Musk’s total compensation, which would be paid out over 10 years, is in stock options contingent on Tesla hitting several targets for revenue, market value and more, Bloomberg said.

So far, the company has met two of the 16 goals, according to that news organization. Tesla is required to pay Musk at least minimum wage, about $37,000 a year, but he told the New York Times he doesn’t cash the checks and therefore does not receive an annual salary.

Tesla had the largest CEO-to-median worker compensation ratio among public companies in the data analyzed by Bloomberg. However, Musk’s realized compensation last year was $56,380, which would make the CEO to median worker ratio 1-to-1, according to documents Tesla filed with the SEC.

In addition to salaries and stock options, CEO compensation can include bonuses and even additional costs incurred by companies on their bosses’ behalves.

For example, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg had a salary of just $1 but a total compensation of $8.85 million in fiscal year 2017. That includes $7.3 million for Zuckerberg’s personal security at his Palo Alto home, as well as when he’s traveling, plus $1.5 million for his use of a private airplane, according to a 2018 proxy statement.

Facebook employees had a median compensation of $240,430, so Zuckerberg had a 37-to-1 ratio. That’s far smaller than the median CEO to employee ratio of 137-to-1, according to Bloomberg. Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s COO, had total compensation of about $25.2 million in fiscal year 2017, mostly in stock awards, according to the proxy statement.

Twitter’s median employee compensation was lower, $161,860, but their CEO, Jack Dorsey, didn’t take a salary. Dorsey was paid $2.75 by Square, the payment processing company he also runs. Square employees have a median compensation of about $152,300.

Likewise, Alphabet — the company formerly known as Google — paid its CEO Larry Page $1 in fiscal year 2017, the most recent data available from Bloomberg. The median Alphabet employee earned almost $197,300.

Salesforce’s billionaire CEO Marc Benioff had $4.65 million in compensation, and his median employee earned about $155,300 — a 30-to-1 ratio. Apple CEO Tim Cook’s compensation was $15.68 million, a 238-to-1 ratio to the tech giant’s median employee, who earned about $55,400.