{"id":427865,"date":"2025-09-16T03:17:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-16T03:17:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/427865\/"},"modified":"2025-09-16T03:17:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T03:17:10","slug":"were-in-big-trouble-pope-concerned-at-elon-musks-trillion-dollar-proposed-pay-pope-leo-xiv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/427865\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018We\u2019re in big trouble\u2019: pope concerned at Elon Musk\u2019s trillion-dollar proposed pay | Pope Leo XIV"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pope Leo said \u201cwe\u2019re in big trouble\u201d when it comes to the ever-widening pay gap between the rich and poor, citing Elon Musk<\/a>, who may be on course to become the world\u2019s first trillionaire.<\/p>\n

Leo made the remarks while criticising executive pay packages during his first interview with the media.<\/p>\n

Reflecting on why the world was so polarised, he said one significant factor was the \u201ccontinuously wider gap between the income levels of the working class and the money that the wealthiest receive\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cCEOs that 60 years ago might have been making four to six times more than what the workers are receiving \u2026 600 times more 1757992630,\u201d the pontiff said in excerpts<\/a> of the interview conducted by Elise Ann Allen, a senior correspondent with the Catholic newspaper Crux as part of a forthcoming biography.<\/p>\n

\u201cYesterday [there was] the news that Elon Musk is going to be the first trillionaire in the world<\/a>. What does that mean and what\u2019s that about? If that is the only thing that has value any more, then we\u2019re in big trouble.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, the board of the electric car maker Tesla said<\/a> it had proposed a new trillion-dollar pay package for Musk, its chief executive and largest shareholder, if he hit targets set by the company.<\/p>\n

Outlining the incentive package, which is unprecedented in corporate history, in a stock market update, the company said: \u201cYes, you read that correctly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Musk, who also owns X.com and SpaceX, will have to increase the value of Tesla from just over $1tn now to $8.5tn over 10 years.<\/p>\n

Leo, elected in May as the first US pope after the death of Pope Francis, also spoke about his first few months as pontiff, saying: \u201cThere\u2019s still a huge learning curve ahead of me.\u201d<\/p>\n

The pope, who turned 70 on Sunday, has so far shown to be much more low-key than his predecessor, even if they shared similar progressive political views.<\/p>\n

Francis often clashed with the US president, Donald Trump, over his hardline immigration policies, while Leo, formerly Cardinal Robert Prevost, also criticised Trump\u2019s policies on his X account before becoming pope.<\/p>\n

Brian Burch, Trump\u2019s new ambassador to the Vatican, who was sharply critical of Francis, gave Leo a chocolate birthday cake during a meeting on Saturday in a bid to nurture friendly relations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pope Leo said \u201cwe\u2019re in big trouble\u201d when it comes to the ever-widening pay gap between the rich…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":427866,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[12,26],"class_list":{"0":"post-427865","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115211812627608720","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=427865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427865\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/427866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=427865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=427865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=427865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}