Apple is worth trillions of dollars – it is the world’s biggest tech company in terms of revenue and, since January, the most valuable company overall as well. So, it’s quite obvious that the CEO of a company whose brand is a household name would rake in the big bucks.
As per Bloomberg’s Annual Pay Index, CEO Tim Cook raked in a cool $265 million compensation package in 2020, almost double from 2019 when he pocketed $133.7 million. Bloomberg broke down Cook’s compensation into four segments: $3 million in salary, $10.7 million in bonuses, around $1 million in perks, and a whopping $250.3 million in stock awards.
However, despite the massive payoff, Cook is still only the eighth highest-paid CEO in the US. In 2019, Tesla CEO Elon Musk was compensated a handsome $595.3 million, much higher than Cook, who came in second place.
In 2020, Oak Street Health COO, Palantir Technologies CEO, Opendoor Technologies CEO, and GoodRX Holdings’ co-CEOs all surpassed Cook’s compensation. Musk was again at the top of the list with a compensation worth a staggering $6.658 billion, according to AppleInsider.
A Wall Street Journal report earlier this year pegged Cook’s annual compensation, without the stock option category, at $14.7 million. According to the report, Cook earned only slightly higher than the average salary of CEOs of top companies across the world. The average salary of CEOs across the S&P 500 index was $13.4 million, The Wall Street Journal reported, adding that Cook’s salary grew 28 per cent in 2020.
Under Cook, Apple has risen to become the world’s most profitable company with revenues of $274.515 billion and profit of $57.411 billion, as per Fortune Global 500 rankings.
The company’s Senior Vice President of Retail and People, Deirdre O’Brien, and Senior Vice President and General Counsel, Kate Adams, were placed at 93rd and 96th on Bloomberg’s Annual Pay Index, with each earning $45 million.
