But in this case it clearly isn't. A bar of percentage growth in 45 years is exactly as informative as writing in the title "CEO salary increased 15 times in the last 45 years, US stock market grew 10 times in the same period".

Even the use of percentages when the percentage is of the order of 1500 is a very lazy choice. With two decimal points........

So many questions unanswered: when the stock market fell, did the CEO salaries fell as well? Are some sectors leading the increase? Are companies getting bigger, so that a larger salary per CEO capita could correspond to a somehow constant top-management expenditure across the board? What was inflation in the same period?

All these questions could have been answered via minimal modifications of the chart.