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As Americans Live Paycheck to Paycheck, Tesla Shareholders Approve Musk's $1 Trillion Package
"Americans understand we're living in a rigged economy," said Sen. Bernie Sanders. "Together, we can and must change that."
Nov 06, 2025
Elon Musk is the world's richest person, with an estimated net worth of nearly $500 billion, but the Tesla CEO could become the world's first trillionaire, thanks to a controversial pay package approved Thursday by the electric vehicle company's shareholders.
Ahead of the vote, a coalition of labor unions and progressive advocacy groups launched the "Take Back Tesla" campaign, urging shareholders to reject the package for its CEO, who spent much of this year spearheading President Donald Trump's so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which prompted nationwide protests targeting the company.
Musk's nearly $1 trillion package would be the biggest corporate compensation plan in history if he gets the full amount by boosting share value "eightfold over the next decade" and staying at Tesla for at least that long. It was approved at the company's annual meeting after the billionaire's previous payout, worth $56 billion, was invalidated by a judge.
The approval vote sparked another wave of intense criticism from progressive groups and politicians who opposed it—including on Musk's own social media platform, X.
"Musk, who spent $270 million to get Trump elected, is now in line to become a trillionaire," Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) wrote on X. "Meanwhile, 60% of our people are living paycheck to paycheck. Americans understand we're living in a rigged economy. Together, we can and must change that."
The vote came during the longest-ever federal government shutdown, which has sparked court battles over the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. A judge on Thursday ordered the full funding of 42 million low-income Americans' November SNAP benefits, but it is not yet clear whether the Trump administration will comply.
The Sunrise Movement, a youth-led climate group, noted the uncertainty over federal food aid in response to the Tesla vote, saying: "Meanwhile, millions of kids are losing SNAP benefits and healthcare because of Musk's allies in DC. In a country rich enough to have trillionaires, there's no excuse for letting kids go hungry."
Robert Reich, a former labor secretary who's now a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said: "Remember: Wealth cannot be separated from power. We've seen how the extreme concentration of wealth is distorting our politics, rigging our markets, and granting unprecedented power to a handful of billionaires. Be warned."
In remarks to the Washington Post, another professor warned that other companies could soon follow suit:
Rohan Williamson, professor of finance at Georgetown University, said Musk's argument for commanding such a vast paycheck is largely unique to Tesla—though similar deals may become more prevalent in an age of founder-led startups.
"No matter how you slice it, it's a lot," Williamson said. But the deal seeks to emphasize Musk’s central—even singular—role in the company's rise, and its fate going forward.
"I drove this to where it is and without me it's going to fail," Williamson said, summarizing Musk's argument.
"No CEO is 'worth' $1 trillion. Full stop," the advocacy group Patriotic Millionaires argued Wednesday, ahead of the vote. "We need legislative solutions like the Tax Excessive CEO Pay Act, which would raise taxes on corporations that pay their executives more than 50 times the wages of their workers."
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Mamdani's Win Is Proof That an Organized Public Can Defeat Organized Money
The most consistent project of elite politics is to cultivate resignation: Nothing can change, no one like you can win, best not to try. When that illusion breaks, even in a single city, it sends tremors outward.
Nov 06, 2025
Zohran Mamdani’s election in New York City is not simply a local upset. It is a breach in the ideological dam that has kept American politics safely contained for generations.
This victory is historic not because one office suddenly overturns entrenched power, but because it demonstrates that such power can be overturned at all.
For decades, political life in the United States has functioned as a managed marketplace in which both parties advertise different brands, yet deliver the same fundamental product: deference to private wealth, hostility to social investment, and a belief that the public should expect very little from its government beyond punishment and surveillance.
On Tuesday, that spell cracked.
Zohran's win feels like the beginning of the first meaningful challenge to the neoliberal consensus in a generation.
Mamdani won not by courting the wealthy, not by flattering real-estate interests, not by running a campaign tailored to the comfort of cable-news pundits.
He won by naming the obvious: that the city belongs to its people, not to absentee landlords; that housing, transit, childcare, food, and dignity are fundamental rights, not privileges; that a budget is a statement of who matters in society—and it’s long past time a city as wealthy as New York put working people first instead of billionaires and real-estate developers.
The bipartisan establishment will attempt to minimize this moment. They will continue to fund hysterical hit pieces designed to make people afraid of those challenging their rule. But their real fear is that this victory might prove contagious.
If New Yorkers can elect someone who openly challenges concentrated power, asks the wealthy to pay their share, and speaks in plain moral terms about economic justice, then perhaps Los Angeles can. Perhaps Cleveland, Minneapolis, Atlanta, and Kansas City.
The danger, from the perspective of those who currently command the political economy, is that people elsewhere may decide to stop begging for crumbs and begin organizing for a real seat at the table.
Power relies on a population convinced of its own helplessness. The most consistent project of elite politics is to cultivate resignation: Nothing can change, no one like you can win, best not to try. When that illusion breaks, even in a single city, it sends tremors outward.
Across the country, millions watching the election results saw something rare in American politics: Proof that a campaign rooted in solidarity can beat one rooted in capital. They saw a future in which the public is not a spectator to its own dispossession. They saw permission to believe in their own power.
They saw that politics need not be reduced to a stage-managed rivalry between corporations wearing different campaign colors.
As someone who saw this possibility in the presidential campaigns of Bernie Sanders, who saw our movement defeated by this same bipartisan establishment, this moment gives me a renewed faith in America's capacity to fight back against oligarchy. Zohran's win feels like the beginning of the first meaningful challenge to the neoliberal consensus in a generation.
And that is why this victory matters. Not because one candidate triumphed, but because a barrier was crossed. The belief that the public must endure austerity while wealth accumulates above it has lost its inevitability. The idea that the mass media can manufacture consent for a Wall Street-approved candidate every time has shattered.
The attacks on Mamdani were relentless these past few months. But their hollow and desperate efforts failed. The majority didn't buy it, and they went to the polls to send Andrew Cuomo packing.
For the first time in a long time, the message is simple and electrifying:
The people can win. And if they can win here, they can win anywhere.
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MAMDANI WINS!!!—Now the Hard Work Begins
Any success he achieves as mayor will be due to the strength of the movement that prevailed in the primary and continued to grow for his election in November.
Nov 06, 2025
On November 4, New York City voters delivered a resounding YES vote to elect Zohran Mamdani as mayor of the largest US city. The final results (yet to be certified) gave Mamdani 50.4% of the vote to Andrew Cuomo’s 41.6% and 7.1% for Republican Curtis Sliwa.
To a great extent, the election was over after Mamdani smashed the Democratic Party establishment by trouncing disgraced New York ex-Gov. Cuomo in the June 24 primary: Mamdani 56% to Cuomo 43%
Mamdani’s primary campaign benefited from “Ranked Choice Voting,” which enables candidates to endorse one another in a coalition to eliminate a candidate perceived as a danger to their shared values. In the June primary, five candidates, led by Mamdani, united to defeat the corrupt Cuomo. In particular, the cross endorsement of Mamdani by NYC Comptroller Brad Lander, who is prominent in the Jewish community, helped to deflect attacks accusing Mamdani of anti-Semitism.
The 34-year-old Mamdani projected confidence, discipline, and a sense of humor. When he called for a rent freeze in January, he welcomed the New Year on a Coney Island beach by plunging into the freezing ocean. Mamdani was fully clothed in his signature blue suit and tie! Videos of this stunt went viral. Since then, he has produced hundreds of short, punchy social media posts throughout the primary and final election push.
A winning candidate that calls out our broken, rigged economic system (just like Bernie Sanders) sets the stage for more “paycheck populists” in the 2026 congressional midterms.
The most compelling aspect of Mamdani’s campaign has been his platform's bold specificity. Unlike most candidates who talk in platitudes about values, integrity, and what they are against. Mamdani has put forward very specific policy goals:
- Increase the Minimum Wage to $30 by 2030
- Freeze the Rents
- No Cost Childcare
- Free buses
- City Owned Grocery Stores
Make the Rich Pay!
Mamdani’s platform has been attacked by the elites as fiscally impossible. He has proposed paying for the increased costs of services by raising the corporate tax rate, and levying a 2% tax on the wealthiest 1% of New Yorkers; those earning above $1 million per year annually.
While Mamdani’s proposals clearly resonated with New York voters, winning elections takes more than a specific program: It requires a strong organization and cadres out in the field knocking on doors. In Mamdani's case, he had 45,000 volunteers in the primary, with grassroots enthusiasm expanding for the final election to 87,000 volunteers. It’s the largest grassroots campaign in New York City's history. At the core of Mamdani’s support are members of the New York’s Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) chapter. Mamdani has been an active member of the chapter and won his election to the New York Assembly with support from the group.
The labor movement with a few exceptions played it safe in the June primary and supported the traditional Democrat, Cuomo. But Mamdani’s smashing victory caused a quick pivot among NYC’s most powerful labor organizations—Teachers, municipal employees, Teamsters, and service workers. Mamdani’s campaign now lists 22 union endorsements.
As Mamdani’s election began to appear very tenable, the attacks magnified. President Donald Trump and the billionaires have been running a full range of attack ads accusing Mamdani of anti-Semitism for his unflagging support for Gaza and bashing him as naïve and inexperienced because of his populist and “unreasonable socialist” program.
With Mamdani’s victory comes the challenges of governing and delivering on his ambitious platform. While it’s unlikely that New York’s billionaires will all relocate to Texas to avoid higher taxes, it’s very likely that there will be strong political resistance among traditional elected Democrats in New York’s state government, which has purview over NYC taxation and spending decisions. That is why Mamdani has made it clear that the army of campaign volunteers cannot be demobilized. They must remain ready to attack any locally elected state representatives who try to thwart Mamdani’s agenda in the state legislature.
Viva Mamdani! Viva New York
Mamdani’s win stands as an example in the midst of the rising anti-worker, anti-people authoritarianism of New York native Donald Trump. While New Yorkers are generally considered very liberal, the fact that Mamdani’s message of taxing billionaires to make life affordable for the 99% reverberated so well with New York’s struggling working class is an important lesson for other aspiring Democrats. A winning candidate that calls out our broken, rigged economic system (just like Bernie Sanders) sets the stage for more “paycheck populists” in the 2026 congressional midterms.
A second lesson for Democrats is that the mayor of the second-largest Jewish metropolitan area in the world (after Tel Aviv) is an outspoken critic of genocide and a practicing Muslim progressive!
Finally, this election creates an opportunity for unions in NYC to grow. Will Mamdani’s explicit endorsement of labor translate to using his municipal power to reinforce union power? Will New Yorkers see T-shirts inscribed with “Mayor Mamdani Wants You to Join a Union!”? Especially challenging will be if his policies could help bring justice to the enormous number of misclassified workers in the “gig” economy.
Mamdani will have a four-year term as mayor. Every Republican and corporate Democrat will do everything possible to ensure he fails, to discredit his socialist platform. Any success he achieves as mayor will be due to the strength of the movement that prevailed in the primary and continued to grow for his election in November. If that movement stays mobilized, continues to grow, and delivers for New York’s working class, it will be an inspiring political model that our labor movement should support and attempt to replicate in other US metropolitan areas.
This piece originally appeared in the Stansbury Forum blog.
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