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'No CEO Is Worth a Trillion-Dollar Pay Package': Unions Target Outrageous Elon Musk Tesla Deal
The world's richest man "has wiped billions off of Tesla's share value, trashed the company's reputation, and driven millions of its customers away," one campaigner said, urging shareholders to reject his pay plan.
Oct 22, 2025
A coalition of labor unions and progressive advocacy organizations on Tuesday launched the "Take Back Tesla" campaign, urging shareholders of the electric vehicle giant to reject a pay package that could make CEO Elon Musk the world's first trillionaire.
Musk is already the richest person on the planet, with an estimated net worth of $458-485.9 billion as of Wednesday. His previous 10-year proposal, worth $56 billion, was invalidated by a judge. He's now on an interim plan that has not been approved by shareholders, who are set to vote on the $1 trillion package at the company's annual meeting next month.
Tesla's board unveiled the proposed $1 trillion plan—which would be the biggest corporate compensation package in history—last month. Musk would get the full amount if he boosted share value "eightfold over the next decade" and stayed at Tesla for at least that long. He would own 29% of the company, one of several in which he holds a leadership position.
Top unions, such as the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and Communications Workers of America (CWA), joined groups including Americans for Financial Reform, Ekō, People's Action Institute, Public Citizen, and Stop the Money Pipeline for the new campaign against "Musk's money grab." As part of it, they launched the website TakeBackTesla.com.
"How shareholders vote on Musk's trillion-dollar pay package and other important Tesla ballot items will likely set the stage for similar attempts by other oligarchs to consolidate their own power."
Several coalition leaders pointed to Musk's recent efforts to get President Donald Trump elected and then help the Republican gut the federal government—which has been shut down for 22 days due to a congressional funding fight—via their so-called Department of Government Efficiency. The billionaire's DOGE activities provoked nationwide protests targeting Tesla.
"In the last 12 months, Elon Musk's attempts to destroy the American government have caused huge damage to the Tesla brand and contributed to a significant decline in the company's sales in multiple key markets," Stop the Money Pipeline's Alex Connon noted, urging shareholders to "reject this insane proposal."
AFT president Randi Weingarten said that "the Tesla board, instead of upholding basic governance standards, wants to green-light an outrageous $1 trillion pay package for a CEO who has spent most of the year engaged in childish political brawls, rather than working to create shareholder value."
"To reward this destructive behavior with an obscene salary is a slap in the face—not only to the federal workers he's fired, but to the retirees whose pensions are invested in Tesla stock," she declared.
Dubbing the proposal "Musk's corporate heist," CWA president Claude Cummings Jr. similarly stressed that "Elon Musk is enriching himself by stealing from the American worker—from our infrastructure dollars for rural broadband to workers' private data from the Department of Labor—and now he wants to steal $1 trillion from our pensions and retirement accounts."
Natalia Renta, Americans for Financial Reform's associate director of corporate governance and power, emphasized that the vote is bigger than Musk. She said that "how shareholders vote on Musk's trillion-dollar pay package and other important Tesla ballot items will likely set the stage for similar attempts by other oligarchs to consolidate their own power."
"This new website allows people to get their voices heard by sending letters to their state financial officer and mutual fund manager (if they have one)," Renta added. State treasurers of Connecticut, Nevada, and New Mexico have already joined mounting calls for shareholders to vote down Musk's compensation package.
Ekō executive director Emma Ruby-Sachs argued that "no CEO is worth a trillion-dollar pay package, but especially not Elon Musk, who has wiped billions off of Tesla's share value, trashed the company's reputation, and driven millions of its customers away. Tesla's shareholders need to show the judgment Musk so clearly lacks, and reject this pay deal."
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Organizers Ramp Up Push for Oct. 18 No Kings Actions Against 'Wannabe Dictator' Trump
"The American people are fed up with Trump's pathetic attempt at wearing the crown," said one event organizer.
Sep 08, 2025
The coalition of progressive organizations that helped organize the nationwide "No Kings" protests this summer are ramping up for a potentially even bigger event in the fall.
The organizations pushed out new publicity on Monday about the "No Kings 2" demonstrations scheduled to take place across the country on October 18. The planned demonstrations come as the Trump administration is accelerating its plans to send the National Guard into US cities and continues to send masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents into immigrant communities.
Sponsors of the No Kings 2 events include ACLU, American Federation of Teachers, Common Defense, 50501, Human Rights Campaign, Indivisible, League of Conservation Voters, MoveOn, National Nurses United, Public Citizen, SEIU, and United We Dream Action.
In an interview with Rolling Stone, Indivisible co-founder Ezra Levin said that he expected this fall's No Kings sequel to be even bigger than the first one, which drew an estimated 5 million people into the streets across more than 2,000 events. Levin also outlined the importance of hitting a critical threshold for anti-Trump demonstrations.
"Experts in authoritarianism tell us, based on research, that you need 3.5% of the population engaged, in a sustained way, to successfully push back against an authoritarian regime," he said. "In the American context, that's about 11 or 12 million people. For No Kings 1, we got about halfway there. And we have funneled a lot of those people into our trainings around strategic noncooperation. But we need to come together again."
Jacob Thomas, a United States Armed Forces veteran and communications director for "No Kings 2" sponsor Common Defense, said in a statement that a common theme that has united the organizations is the fight against US President Donald Trump's authoritarian ambitions.
"We must all do our part to fight back against his authoritarianism and military occupation of cities," he said. "We cannot allow a wannabe dictator to destroy our democracy, gut veteran healthcare, keep people from accessing the ballot box, and tank our economy. We must all join together in solidarity to fight back and secure our freedoms."
Human Rights Campaign president Kelley Robinson said the protests were necessary because Trump's actions were direct attacks on the American dream of "freedom afforded to all people."
"Since taking office, he has tried to erode our freedoms and amass power for himself, censoring history, undermining our voting rights, defying the rule of law, and stripping people of basic rights simply because of who they are or who they love," she said. "But this country does not and will never have a king. The power of the people is and will continue to be greater than the man obsessed with keeping power for himself."
Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen, ticked off a list of grievances against the president to argue that mass protests against him are needed now more than ever.
"In less than 10 months of his presidency, Trump has ticked off every box of a king's playbook," she said. "He has plastered his face on banners across DC, weaponized National Guard troops against our communities, disappeared people or thrown them out of the country without due process, attempted to sabotage elections and erode our democracy, and trivialized the power of Congress and the courts. He has violated the Constitution over and over again. The American people are fed up with Trump's pathetic attempt at wearing the crown."
The first set of "No Kings" protests came on Trump's 79th birthday, on the same day he put on a massive military parade that cost $30 million to produce.
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Nearly 1,000 'Workers Over Billionaires' Protests Planned Across US for Labor Day
"This is about workers showing up and demanding what workers deserve all across the country," said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers.
Aug 29, 2025
Unions and progressive organizations are planning nearly 1,000 "Workers Over Billionaires" demonstrations across the United States this Labor Day to protest President Donald Trump's assault on workers' rights.
The day of national action has been organized by the May Day Strong coalition, which includes labor organizations like the AFL-CIO, American Federation of Teachers, and National Union of Healthcare Workers, as well as advocacy groups like Americans for Tax Fairness, Indivisible, Our Revolution, and Public Citizen.
"Labor and community are planning more than a barbecue on Labor Day this year because we have to stop the billionaire takeover," the coalition says. "Billionaires are stealing from working families, destroying our democracy, and building private armies to attack our towns and cities."
Since coming into office, the Trump administration has waged war on workers' rights. Among many other actions, his administration has stripped over a million federal workers of their right to collectively bargain in what has been called the largest act of union busting in American history and dramatically cut their wages.
He has also weakened workplace safety enforcement, eliminated rules that protected workers against wage theft, and proposed eliminating the federal minimum wage for more than 3.7 million childcare and home workers.
Despite Trump's efforts, Americans still believe in the power of collective action. According to a Gallup poll published Thursday, 68% of Americans say they approve of labor unions, the highest level of support since the mid-1960s.
"Just like any bad boss, the way we stop the takeover is with collective action," the coalition says on its website.
The May Day Strong coalition previously organized hundreds of thousands of workers to take to the streets for International Workers Day, more commonly known as "May Day." On Monday, rallies are once again expected across all 50 states.
Four months later, their list of grievances has grown even longer, with Republicans having since passed a tax cut expected to facilitate perhaps the largest upward transfer of wealth in US history, featuring massive tax breaks for the wealthy paid for with historic cuts to the social safety net.
"There are nearly 1,000 billionaires in the country with a whopping $6 trillion, and that is still not enough for them," said Saqib Bhattie, executive director of the Action Center on Race and the Economy, another group participating in the protests. "They are pushing elected officials to slash Medicaid, [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program] benefits, and special education funding for schools in order to fund their tax breaks. We need to claw back money from the billionaire. We need to push legislation to tax billionaires at the state and local levels. We need to organize to build the people power necessary to overcome their money."
The group also plans to respond to Trump's lawless attacks on immigrants and his militarized takeovers of American cities.
"This Labor Day," said Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen, "we continue the fight for our democracy, the fight for the soul of our nation, the fight against the vindictive authoritarian moves Trump and the billionaire class aimed at stealing from working people and concentrating power."
"This is about workers showing up and demanding what workers deserve all across the country," said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers. "This Labor Day is really different, because it's not just labor unions, as important as we may be to the workers we represent. It has to be all workers and all working families saying enough. Workers and working families deserve the bounty of the country."
May Day Strong will host a national "mass call" online on Saturday. The locations of the hundreds of protests on Monday can be found using the map on May Day Strong's website.
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