Pope Leo Criticises High, Elon Musk-style Corporate Pay Packages [View all]

Source: Huff Post/Reuters

Sep 14, 2025, 10:13 PM EDT


VATICAN CITY, Sept 14 (Reuters) - Pope Leo criticised corporate pay packages that offer executives much higher salaries than their employees in excerpts from his first media interview released on Sunday, citing Tesla’s recent $1 trillion compensation plan for CEO Elon Musk.

Leo, originally from Chicago, also spoke about the United Nations, his decades working as a missionary in Peru, how he has been adapting to the role of pope, and his hopes for peace in the bloody, three-year conflict between Ukraine and Russia. He has shown a more reserved style than his predecessor Pope Francis, who often gave interviews, and prefers to speak from prepared texts. Sunday’s excerpts were released on the Catholic news site Crux.

“CEOs that 60 years ago might have been making four to six times more than what the workers are receiving … 600 times more (now),” Leo said in the interview, conducted at the end of July for a coming biography. “Yesterday (there was) the news that Elon Musk is going to be the first trillionaire in the world,” he said. “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.”

Leo, elected the first U.S. pope by the world’s cardinals in May to replace Francis, criticized the UN as no longer being able to foster effective multilateral diplomacy.

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