Musk's $158.3 billion salary is actually 0

On May 2, according to CCTV Finance, on April 30, Tesla disclosed in a regulatory filing that Musk's total salary for 2025 was US$158.36 billion, which was 2.5 million times the company's median average employee. Although this number is staggering, the company also disclosed a number of important additional notes. Tesla said in the filing that there may be a "huge deviation" between the total amount of Musk's salary announced by the company every year and its actual value. Since Tesla failed to achieve any market value and business assessment targets last year, Musk's actual salary last year was zero.