Pope Leo has taken a bit of a swipe at Elon Musk in his first interview since being elected.
Born Robert Prevost in Chicago, the American took on the role of the head of the Catholic Church after being considered a dark horse candidate in the conclave earlier in the spring of this year.
Having been published on his birthday yesterday (14 September), the leader gave his first media interview at the end of July for an upcoming biography.
The Pope chose his papal name, Leo, in honour of Leo XIII who had campaigned for higher wages and enhanced union rights for those working in factories.
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And during the interview, he took the opportunity to criticise the rich CEOs (such as Musk) getting huge salaries compared to their employees.
In an excerpt released on the Catholic news site, Crux, Pope Leo spoke about ‘the continuously wider gap between the income levels of the working class and the money that the wealthiest receive’.
“For example, CEOs that 60 years ago might have been making four to six times more than what the workers are receiving, the last figure I saw, it’s 600 times more than what average workers are receiving,” the Pope said.
“Yesterday the news that Elon Musk is going to be the first trillionaire in the world.”
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Pope Leo went on to ask what this means and what it’s all about.
“If that is the only thing that has value anymore, then we’re in big trouble…” he added.
His comments come as Musk has a reported trillion dollar pay package on the table at Tesla.
Chair Robyn Denholm recently defended the stock package as she described the tech boss as a ‘unique’ chief executive that needs to achieve ‘impossible things’ to secure this mega award.
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Speaking to the Financial Times, she said: “In order to achieve the aspirational goals that we have put in place, he will have to put in time, energy and effort beyond what most humans can do.”
Leo’s predecessor, Pope Francis, was known as the ‘humble Pope’ and had repeatedly condemned wealth inequality. He described such matters as a ‘sickness’.
And while this package sits on the table, in recent times, Musk was briefly dethroned as the richest man in the world.
Following a boom in stocks for technology company Oracle, its co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Larry Ellison saw his 41 percent share in the company boom by a whopping 40 percent, according to Bloomberg. And so, Ellison’s net worth saw him overtake Musk for a short while.
Can’t imagine Pope Leo makes much of that.
Topics: Pope Leo, Elon Musk, Politics, World News, Business, Money
Jess Battison