Elon Musk recently made the headlines for his proposed Tesla pay package that could exceed one trillion dollars,1 setting a new high watermark in CEO compensation. It is unlikely that Musk will actually receive that amount for multiple reasons. The proposed pay scheme includes a series of financial targets, including dramatically increasing the firm’s market value, which would only then result in Musk receiving millions of new shares. In 2024, a Delaware court struck down Tesla’s pay package for Musk, even in the face of a shareholder ratification.2 While some may think a payout of this scale is irrelevant to anyone besides Tesla investors, consider for a moment the impact Mr. Musk, or anyone, could have with this level of wealth.
In a world where Musk would be paid $1 trillion, he would generate more income than the annual GDP of any but the 20 largest countries in the world.3 For perspective, if one were to live 50 years after being paid $1 trillion, one could spend $54 million every single day and still die with money left in the bank.4 A sports fan could buy every team in the National Football League 20 times over. A philanthropist educator could generously put 8.33 million students through a four-year private institution. Even among the super wealthy, a trillionaire would stand out. He would be able to buy just under 2,000 of Jeff Bezos’ super yacht.5
Musk’s pay proposal did not occur in a vacuum. The rich in America are indeed getting richer, on both an absolute and relative scale.6 In the third quarter of 1989, the top 0.1% wealthiest people in the US collectively owned $1.76 trillion while the bottom 50% held $0.72 trillion. In the third quarter of 2025, the fortunes of the top 0.1% had risen to $24.89 trillion, while the wealth of the bottom 50% had grown to only $4.25 trillion. At the same time, the absolute number of super-wealthy people in America is also growing. In 2000, there were 298 billionaires in the United States. By 2023, that number had grown to 748 billionaires.7 According to a study produced by the Union Bank of Switzerland, in 2024, America produced 379,000 new millionaires,8 although others estimate the number of newly minted American millionaires that year at over half a million.9 Even at the more conservative estimate, the number of millionaires in the United States now exceeds that of China, the UK, Germany, Japan, and Canada combined.
This kind of concentration of wealth imbues the holders with certain opportunities. Not only can they cause economic impact in global equity, debt, currency, and product markets, but they can also assert political power and cultural influence. How they exercise these opportunities can affect all of us, and while all our students deserve our full investment, it is arguable that the best thing we can do for those students whose lives will be lived in the middle or bottom steps of the economic ladder is to positively influence those who will occupy the top rung. As Christian educators, it behooves us to teach future leaders to steward their resources well, instilling principles in them that will protect both the world and themselves from folly and malfeasance.
Our future, or current, super-wealthy students have needs that we are uniquely positioned to address. Research indicates that the wealthiest people in our society tend to carry certain psychological and behavioral attributes that are contrary to a Christ-animated understanding of humankind’s normative relationship with wealth. Unlike those of lesser means, the very wealthy have less aversion to wealth. 10They are less likely to recognize the spiritual dangers that Jesus highlighted in Matthew 19:24 (“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” NIV). They are more likely to see themselves as deserving of wealth. A sense of satisfaction with very high levels of wealth can lead to behaviors of entitlement, exhibited through expectations that their needs and desires will always be satisfied.
The very wealthy are also more likely to see God as having less control, and themselves as having greater control, over the world around them. 11This phenomenon of wealth producing a sense of control is intuitive, even to those of us who may have only experienced it in very limited ways. When one owns the house, one expects others living there to cooperate with the owner’s requirements (“My house; my rules.”). Likewise, when one owns the factory, the firm, or the club, one would expect the employees and guests of those organizations to conform to the owner’s demands. The sense of control that very wealthy people experience can also impact their theology. Combined with a greater sense of satisfaction in life, experiencing the world as a place they control reduces their perceived need for God (the preferential option for the poor).
Perhaps most immediately concerning for professors at Christian universities, the wealthy’s comfort with their financial reality can impact their sense of identity. Students who experience financial distress are also more likely to experience depression, low self-esteem, and low self-image.12 The reverse is also true and can be reinforced by the wealthy to the detriment of the less well off. The very wealthy tend to associate people’s wealth with their worth. This view might be seen in behaviors that minimize the value of those “beneath their station” and manifest as disregard or even maltreatment. What alternative worldview can Christian professors offer to counteract these tendencies of the super wealthy to feel entitled, masters of their universe, above their fellow man, and beyond the need for God?
We might begin with identifying God as the owner and source of all the world’s resources (Psalm 89:11). While very wealthy people tend to feel entitled to their wealth, Scripture would describe them as gifted (James 1:17, Romans 12:3). Even those who are “self-made” are not self-made (Job 1:21). Anyone who holds themselves as the source of their wealth may see their own satisfaction as the best and highest use of that wealth. Once a person acknowledges that the wealth they control (little or much) is not their own, they can consider their accountability to the true owner of their assets. What does God want all of us to do with our wealth? Randy Alcorn has written a number of books on this topic, but I might recommend one of his earlier ones, Money, Possessions, and Eternity,13 for a student-accessible doctrine of wealth. If we can convince our students to look beyond themselves for the source and purpose of their possessions, we will invite the question of how they are to relate to wealth and introduce the concept of Biblical stewardship.
From the very beginning, mankind was called to steward the earth (Genesis 1:28-30). Stewards, as opposed to owners, are accountable not just for what they have received but for accomplishing the owner’s purposes with it (Matthew 25:14-30). How to understand those purposes and remain faithful in that accountability is a well-documented inquiry. In my own territory of the Christian business academy, the doctrine of stewardship is one of the most well-tilled fields. A quick search relating to “stewardship” in the Journal of Biblical Integration in Business returns over 100 articles. Teaching students about Christian stewardship is also a much-researched topic. The Christian Business Academy Review archives contain over 60 articles relating to stewardship. For those looking for pre-prepared curriculum, Kenman Wong and Donovan Richard’s video series and study guides, Faith&Co: Business on Purpose, is a well-tried option.
A guiding principle of Christian stewardship is that we are to devote that with which we have been entrusted to the good of others (Luke 3:11). Faithful deployment of our wealth is a primary means by which we fulfill the second greatest commandment, to love our neighbor as ourselves (Matthew 22:39). Positive examples of this principle include Christian businesspeople like R.G. LeTourneau who devoted much of his wealth to Christian missions and founded the university that still bears his name. More importantly, Christian stewardship is a means by which all people (rich and poor) can conform to the greatest commandment, to love the Lord with all we are and have (Matthew 22:37). The very wealthy’s predisposition to rely upon their wealth as a measure of their worth and a source of their identity resounds in idolatry. Many of us have experienced the prayer life that results from running out of resources and having to rely wholly upon the Lord. Helping the future super wealthy to gain that perspective, even if only vicariously, will help guard them from misusing their wealth.
While encouraging them in the principle of stewardship is an excellent starting point for training the next generation of billionaires, it should not be the endpoint of their preparation. Stewardship, though often cited, has limitations within Christian business literature.14 Given the abundance of influence the very wealthy have, we should go further to train them to become co-creators with God. Reaching back to the Genesis 1 narrative and the Adamic commandment to fill the earth, we can train them in how to use their resources to launch productive businesses and build Christian communities. In 1722, Count Nikolaus Zinzendorf offered his land to Moravian refugees and founded the community of Herrnhut.15 Based on Christian principles and under his leadership, the community became such an example of human flourishing that the government of Saxony asked him to start new communities on the same model all over their nation. Our mission is to help our students see themselves as builders with God rather than consumers of what they have produced or will receive.
Rather than allow them to remain with the illusion that they are masters of their own universe, we should train the future wealthiest among us that their identity is, and will best be found, in their service of God. I have often asked my students who they thought was the most powerful leader in history. After entertaining a few suggestions like Genghis Khan, Adolf Hitler, and Franklin Roosevelt, I submit to them that Moses would be an obvious choice. In a nation estimated to number three or four million people, Moses had absolute sway over every aspect of their daily life. When he said, “Eat, ” they ate. When he said, “Abstain from work,” they abstained. When he told them to “Move”; they packed their tents and started walking. Never has an individual exercised so much control over so many people. Those who opposed him were struck down (Numbers 16, Numbers 12:10). And yet, never in Scripture is Moses described in terms of leadership. He is repeatedly referred to as, “Moses, the servant of the Lord” (Joshua 1:13, 8:33, 11:12, 12:6, 2 Kings 18:12, 2 Chronicles 1:3, Revelation 15:3).
It should go without saying that there is a measure of our own demonstration of these ideas that is required if we are to persuade anyone, especially the super-rich, to adopt our point of view on wealth. If we are to truly impact our students, including those who will someday rule this world, we will have to live out these propositions in our own lives. Students have always been pretty good at identifying insincerity, and every parent knows young people tend to learn “more from what is caught than taught.”
Most of us who have taken on the work of university faculty are aware of our influence over the minds of our students, particularly our traditional college students who are still forming their views of the world and themselves. Telemachus had his Mentor. Plato had his Socrates. Introducing the future’s most impactful people to the idea that lasting greatness belongs not to those who advance their own authority, comfort, and wealth but to those who steward God’s earth, join Him in His creative work, and serve His purposes, could be the best use of that influence to secure a brighter future for all of us.
- Lily Jamali, “Elon Musk’s $1tn Pay Deal Approved by Tesla Shareholders,” BBC Network, 2025, https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwyk6kvyxvzo. ↩︎
- Donald Kalfen, “Delaware Court Rejects Musk’s Pay Package for Second Time,” The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance, 2024, https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2024/12/29/delaware-court-rejects-musks-pay-package-for-second-time/ ↩︎
- Statista, “Countries With the Largest GDP Worldwide 2025,” 2026, https://www.statista.com/statistics/268173/countries-with-the-largest-gross-domestic-product-gdp/?srsltid=AfmBOoqOicxSH_uf-FGOB7mpxf_GZ8lyLe5XQwI1wrer3r-PVD-qUiJr ↩︎
- Fox Business, “How Much Is a Trillion Dollars? What a Trillion Can Buy,” 2016, https://www.foxbusiness.com/features/how-much-is-a-trillion-dollars-what-a-trillion-can-buy ↩︎
- Cassandra Buchman, “Elon Musk Nabbed a $1 Trillion Pay Package. What Can You Buy with That?” Straight Arrow News, 2025, https://san.com/cc/elon-musk-nabbed-a-1-trillion-pay-package-what-can-you-buy-with-that/. ↩︎
- “The Fed – Table: Distribution of Household Wealth in the U.S. Since 1989,” Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, n.d., https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/distribute/table/. ↩︎
- Statista, “U.S. Billionaires 1990-2023,” 2025, https://www.statista.com/statistics/220093/number-of-billionaires-in-the-united-states/?srsltid=AfmBOorlUENPZ2xvl5kZ-PbC_2mcpeTt90cNzkCaDpfU-pJ6ghyLNeDs. ↩︎
- World Economic Magazine, “America’s new millionaire: Not jet-setters, but ‘Everyday Millionaires’ driving wealth boom,” 2025, https://worldecomag.com/us-millionaire-population-surges-2024-america/ ↩︎
- Lisa Lagace, “562,000 Americans Became Millionaires in 2024 — 4 Ways Your Neighbors Are Getting Rich and How to Keep Up,” Yahoo Finance, 2025, https://finance.yahoo.com/news/562-000-americans-became-millionaires-152300877.html. ↩︎
- Bradley T. Klontz, Paul Sullivan, Martin C, Seay, and Anthony Canale, “The Wealthy: A Financial Psychological Profile,” Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, 67, no. 3 (2015), 219–233. https://doi.org/10.1037/cpb0000039. ↩︎
- Scott Schieman, “Socioeconomic Status and Beliefs about God’s Influence in Everyday Life,” Sociology of Religion, 71(1), (Spring 2010), 25–51, https://doi.org/10.1093/socrel/srq004. ↩︎
- Jebediah Northern, William O’Brien, and Paul Goetz, “The Development, Evaluation, and Validation of a Financial Stress Scale for Undergraduate Students,” Journal of College Student Development, 51, no. 1 (2010), 79-92. ↩︎
- Randy Alcorn, Money, Possessions, and Eternity, Rev. & updated ed. (Tyndale House Publishers, 2003). ↩︎
- Steve McMullen, “Stewardship as an Environmental and Economic Ethic,” Christian Scholar’s Review, 2020, Stewardship as an Environmental and Economic Ethic – Christian Scholar’s Review ↩︎
- J.E. Hutton, A History of the Moravian Church (Project Gutenberg, 1909). History of the Moravian Church, by J. E. Hutton. ↩︎
