Roger Fingas
Barring some sort of financial disaster, Apple CEO Tim Cook is set to collect stock worth a massive $120 million on Friday.
Cook will get 280,000 shares for his continued work as CEO, and up to double that if Apple's stock market return in the past three years beats two thirds of the companies in the S&P 500. Apple has returned 119 percent in that timeframe, Bloomberg noted, exceeding 80 percent of S&P businesses.
Since Cook took over the CEO role in 2011 he has received annual stock handouts, originally meant to vest in two increments across the span of a decade. Two years later, Cook asked the board of directors to link a third of those shares to Apple's relative stock market performance.
The company recently became the first in the U.S. to reach a $1 trillion market cap, all but guaranteeing a large payout.
Cook would be rich with or without continued stock grants. He's estimated to be worth $700 million, and receives a $3 million annual salary — which, last year, was supplemented by a $9.33 million bonus.
Like some other high-profile businessmen, Cook has promised to donate most of his money to charity. Earlier this week he gifted 23,215 shares, worth just under $5 million, to an unidentified organization.
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11 Comments
Good for him.
High performers deserve the compensation.
Well, at least he's donating most of his money to charity. I give him and Gates kudos for that.
But I think excessive compensation at Apple and other companies warps perception of consumer pricing. When salaries of many workers are so high and most live within the bubble of similarly compensated tech workers, pricing a phone at $1000 or a MacBook Pro at $4000 (with upgrades) doesn't seem out of line, because they can easily afford it. But IMO, it distorts their perception of what the larger public can afford. Let's not forget that average household income in the U.S. is still only about $55,000 a year.
Apple had a great 3rd quarter, but Mac sales were down 13.3% as compared to the same quarter previous fiscal. Maybe pricing has something to do with that.
Of course the crazy thing is, despite many years of generous salary and stock compensation, this nowhere near qualifies him for the Forbes list. He's still near a pauper compared to the founders of Tech Titans, or even the founders of Snap, WhatsApp, etc etc.