Apple's Tim Cook comes in eighth place in ranking of top-paid CEOs

Apple CEO Tim Cook has fallen to eighth place in a ranking of the top-paid chief executives in the US, according to a new report.

Cook earned about $265 million in 2020, Bloomberg reported Wednesday. Around $250 million of that was in stock awards, which has long comprised the majority of Cook's compensation. Cook also earned $3 million in salary, more than $10 million in bonuses, and about $1 million in perks.

The Apple CEO fell several places year-over-year. In 2019, Cook ranked as the second highest-paid CEO behind Elon Musk with compensation of $133.7 million.

Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, again came in first with total compensation of $6.7 billion. The lion's share of that number is made up of options awards. Musk's compensation also far eclipses the runners-up. In second place was Oak Street Health CEO Mike Pykosz with about $568 million in compensation.

The chief executives of GoodRx Holdings, Open-door Technologies, and Palantir Technologies filled out the top six. Oak Street Health's COO, Geoffrey Price, came in seventh with more than $356 million in compensation.

Bloomberg also ranked the highest-paid women CEOs and executives throughout 2020, with the top-paid female executive coming in 34th place.

Apple's people and retail chief Deidre O'Brien was the fourth highest-paid executive in 2020 with compensation of $45.4 million. Among all executives, she came in 93rd place. Just behind O'Brien was Apple SVP and General Counsel Kate Adams, who ranked as the fifth highest-paid female executive and the 96th highest paid executive.

11 Comments

blastdoor 3568 comments · 15 Years

About 3 years ago

I think Cook deserves more than most other CEOs, but mostly because the others deserve far less than what they're getting.

In many (perhaps most) cases, it seems like CEOs are running a protection racket. Shareholders are just paying them not to totally wreck the business.

lkrupp 10521 comments · 19 Years

I believe Steve Jobs worked for $1/yr when he came back. Yes/No?

carnegie 1082 comments · 10 Years

lkrupp said:

I believe Steve Jobs worked for $1/yr when he came back. Yes/No?

Mr. Jobs received a $1 annual salary during his second stint with Apple, yes.

But he was otherwise financially well compensated. He received a RSU grant in 2003 which was valued at about $75 million at the time. When the shares vested in 2006 they we worth around $650 million. Those shares, if held today, would be worth more than $40 billion. (They aren't still held, of course. For starters, nearly half of them were withheld for tax purposes.)

Mr. Jobs also received an airplane which was initially reported as representing a total cost to Apple of $90 million.

dewme 5738 comments · 10 Years

Sounds like we need to put together a GoFundMe campaign for poor Tim.

entropys 4302 comments · 13 Years

Only the owner of a company should get that kind of moolah. He is an employee. Money Tim Cook gets is money the shareholders don’t get.

Does anyone seriously think Tim Cook would not work for Apple if he was paid one tenth as much? It isn’t always about money, especially when you already have a lot of it.