The point is that at this point Tesla itself could pay Elon Musk absolutely nothing. His stock appreciation as a shareholder is where the majority of his income is coming from. It has nothing to do with CEO compensation at that point.
It has nothing to do with “labels”. There is a fundamental different between what a company pays its CEO and what the value of its shares provide through appreciation.
> From a social analysis point of view of incomes inequalities, they are just random labels.
FFS, one is not even income. So they aren’t the same if you care about even talking about income inequality.
An equity stake appreciating in a company is not actually income until you sell it and realize the gain. For example, if Amazon’s stock price doubles, none of the shareholders have made any income until they sell it on the market.
This distinction matters because stock owner equity appreciation has literally nothing to do with the amount the board has agreed to pay the CEO. They give a salary and a fixed number of shares with maybe another fixed number of shares if performance numbers are hit.
All of the obscenely rich CEOs are also major owners and their net worth is a bunch of unsold equity in the company. Being mad about companies becoming valuable and making shareholders wealthy is a completely different argument from income inequality. Shareholder appreciation directly benefits 401k holders, etc. and you’ll find a lot less support for putting a cap on how much a company can be worth.
