Apple CEO Tim Cook
Photograph by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Tim Cook, chief executive of Apple , has received almost $100 million in compensation for 2021, according to documents filed to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The pay package was almost seven times more than the $14.8 million seen the previous year. The increase was largely due to granting of restricted stock worth $82.3 million.
The tech boss, who has now led Apple (ticker: AAPL) for more than a decade, has delivered record profits. The stock jumped 35.9% over the past 12 months, more than the 26.3% increase from Meta (FB), the owner of Facebook , but less than Microsoft
‘s (MSFT) 47.9% rise.
But executives like Cook rarely manage to reach the same financial heights as rivals at other tech companies who have founded their own businesses. Cook has an estimated wealth of $1.5 billion, according to Forbes, but this only ranks him as the 2,083th richest person in the world.
By comparison, Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive of Meta, is the sixth richest person in the world with an estimated worth of $118 billion. Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos is third-richest with a fortune worth $188.7 billion, according to Forbes. Founders tend to control more stock in the companies they have started because when they set their businesses up they have a bigger slice of the pie.
Tesla (TSLA) founder Elon Musk is the wealthiest of all CEOs with an estimated worth of $264 billion, according to Forbes.
In recent days, Apple became the world’s first $3 trillion company. It has been a pandemic winner as locked-down consumers bought more of the the tech giant’s technology for their homes.
Apple first hit the $2 trillion level on Aug. 20, 2020 or 505 days ago. Since then through Jan. 3, 2022, Apple has added $2 billion a day on average to its market value, if you include weekends, Barron’s reported earlier this month. It has been 1,254 days since Apple hit $1 trillion for the first time in August 2018.
“The 2021 annual total compensation of our CEO was $98,734,394, the 2021 annual total compensation of our median compensated employee was $68,254, and the ratio of these amounts is 1,447 to 1,” the Apple proxy statement said.
Write to Rupert Steiner at [email protected]
