Executive pay across the US hit its highest-ever levels in 2025, with CEOs earning 312 times more than the median worker, according to a new report by the country’s largest federation of unions.

Executive pay across the US hit its highest-ever levels in 2025, with CEOs earning 312 times more than the median worker, according to a new report by the country’s largest federation of unions.

The record-breaking figure from the AFL-CIO’s annual Paywatch report, comes as workers’ share of the national income fell to its lowest level on record.

The “stratospheric rise” in CEO pay reflected in the figures does not even account for the record-breaking $1trn (£739bn) pay package that Tesla shareholders approved for Elon Musk earlier in June, the report said, “a figure so high it would have skewed the data on its own.”

Musk already “broke the CEO pay curve” in 2025 when he received $158.3bn as Tesla CEO, roughly 2.5 million times the pay of the median employee, the report noted. “It was 14 times higher than the total compensation of all other S&P 500 company CEOs combined,” it said.

CEOs received an average of $340m in 2025. But even after excluding Musk, average CEO pay at S&P 500 companies rose 21% last year, from $19m to $22.8m. The average CEO-to-worker pay ratio, excluding Tesla, also increased from 285-to-one to 312-to-one.

The report highlighted the growing concentration of wealth and influence among corporate executives, extending from boardrooms and into the highest levels of political power.

The AFL-CIO says stronger unions and collective bargaining could help close the pay gap.

While billionaire bosses have seen their pay and wealth soar, their employees’ share of national income has fallen to its lowest level on record, the report added.

“Working Americans are struggling to feed their kids and pay their electric bills,” while CEO pay reaches “a new, shameful high,” said AFL-CIO secretary treasurer Fred Redmond.

“But there’s a better economy we can build for working people. That’s why the labour movement will continue to fight for every worker to have a union contract that begins to level the playing field and ensures they take home the share of the profit they create.”

He added that the AFL-CIO was organising 16 million union voters to elect pro-worker politicians ahead of the mid-terms in November.

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