It would take the average Australian nearly five months to make as much as Tesla and SpaceX boss Elon Musk makes in just five minutes, according to new research.

Gigacalculator has helpfully done the maths and worked out just how long it would take the average Australian to make what the CEOs of some of the biggest tech companies in the world make in a few minutes.

Gigacalculator offers a range of calculators and converters for everyday use, including for loans, measurements, and for dog years to human years.
The company also surveyed Australians on their thoughts on high-paid executives, finding that most think it’s unjustified for them to be earning this much, and no-one understands what they actually do.
The report found that Elon Musk makes $21,030 in five working minutes.

Based on the average full-time salary in Australia of $48,360, it would take a normal person 22 weeks, two days and three hours to make the same amount that the Tesla boss makes in five minutes.

“To put that into perspective, the Tesla maverick in five minutes can buy 10 return flight tickets for Sydney to Johannesburg,” the report said.

Musk recently revealed his brain-computer interface company Neuralink had successfully put a prototype device into the brains of pigs, with the aim of it to act “kind of like a Fitbit in your skull with tiny wires”.

It would take an Australian five weeks and two hours to make what Apple CEO Tim Cook makes in five minutes – $3,044. In just these few minutes, Cook makes enough to buy three iPhone 12s.

Gigacalculator surveyed just under 1,500 Australian to determine how they felt about these high-paid CEOs.

It found that just under 80 per cent of those surveyed thought it is “unjustified” for major CEOs to be paid millions of dollars each year, and over 70 per cent don’t actually understand what these CEOs do on a day-to-day basis to justify this.

Also on the list is Alphabet boss Sundar Pichai, who makes $3,044 in five minutes. It would take the average Australian three weeks, one day and two hours to make this same amount.

And it would take an average person four weeks, two days and one hour to make what Charter Communications’ Tom Rutledge does in five minutes; and one week, two days and seven hours to earn what Microsoft boss Satya Nadella makes in five minutes.

The survey also found that 65 per cent of Australians would like these CEOs to be more transparent about what they actually do each day, and demonstrate how they are contributing to help the company grow and improve.

More than 85 per cent of those surveyed felt the economic disparity between what these CEOs are paid and the average Australia is “too wide” and needs to drastically “shrink” in the coming years.

The CEOs’ salaries are based on Bloomberg’s CEO pay index.