Tesla, Ford, Netflix, and T-Mobile are among scores of profitable U.S. firms that pay their top executives more than they pay in federal taxes.
by Sarah Anderson, William Rice, and Zachary Tashman, Inequality.org
Corporate tax dodging and CEO pay have both gotten so far out of control that a significant number of major U.S. companies are paying their top executives more than they’re paying Uncle Sam.
Tesla is perhaps the most dramatic example. Over the period 2018-2022, the electric car maker raked in $4.4 billion in profits but paid no federal income taxes. Meanwhile, Tesla CEO Elon Musk became one of the world’s richest men.

When it comes to fleecing taxpayers while overpaying executives, Tesla is hardly alone. A new report we co-authored for the Institute for Policy Studies and Americans for Tax Fairness analyzes executive pay data for some of the country’s most notorious corporate tax dodgers.
What did we find? In addition to Tesla, 34 other large and profitable U.S. firms — including household names like Ford, Netflix, and T-Mobile — paid less in federal income taxes between 2018 and 2022 than they paid their top five executives.
Another 29 profitable corporations paid their top executives more than they paid Uncle Sam in at least two of the five years of the study period.
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