Pope Leo XIV has criticized pay packages that reward executives with massively higher pay than workers, and he cited Tesla's proposed compensation plan of around $1 trillion for its CEO, Elon Musk.

"We live in times when polarization seems to be one of the words of the day, but it's not helping anybody," the Pope told Crux's Elise Ann Allen on Sept. 14, his 70th birthday.

Allen is writing a biography of the Pope to be published in Spanish in Peru.

Leo was referring to the news that Musk could become the world's first trillionaire--if Tesla shareholders give the green light to a new compensation plan and he meets aggressive company goals over the next decade, Newsweek reported.

Pope Leo said: "What does that mean and what's that about?"

The pontiff's remarks, published in excerpts of his first media interview, sharpen a moral critique of widening executive-to-worker pay ratios at a time when Tesla shareholders are weighing an unprecedented pay package.

That award could make Musk the world's first trillionaire if its goals are met—a development that proponents say would incentivize bold innovation while critics say it would deepen inequality.

Tesla's board on Sept. 5 proposed a pay package that could make its chief executive, Elon Musk, the world's first trillionaire as long as he meets a series of very ambitious corporate goals, The New York Times reported.

Musk, already the world's richest person, would have to increase Tesla's stock market value eightfold over the next decade to collect the full value of the package, according to a securities filing.

All the compensation would be in the form of Tesla shares.

The package, which must be approved by the company's shareholders, is expected to be put to a vote at an annual meeting on Nov. 6.

Leo was discussing the "value of human life, of the family, and the value of society."

He said there were multiple factors contributing to losing this, but said one "very significant" issue is "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," he noted.

"Yesterday, the news that Elon Musk is going to be the first trillionaire in the world. What does that mean and what's that about? If that is the only thing that has value anymore, then we're in big trouble."

Tesla's board last week said it would propose to award Musk hundreds of millions of Tesla shares if he drives the company's market value to $8.5 trillion, a figure that exceeds the current combined market caps of Meta, Microsoft, and Alphabet.

Should the compensation plan be approved and targets met, Musk would receive an additional 423.7 million Tesla shares, potentially adding $900 billion to his current net worth, according to Time.