Apple CEO Tim Cook voluntarily took a 40% pay cut this year in response to shareholder backlash over his 2022 pay, but don’t feel too sorry for him.
Cook, whose net worth was calculated by Forbes to be around $1.7 billion, will take home $49 million in total compensation in 2023, according to filings submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
His reduced pay was a reaction to the backlash from Apple shareholders to his previous $98.7 million annual salary, which amounted to more than 1,447 times the median wage of a company employee.
Last year, 64% of Apple shareholders approved of Cook’s compensation — which was down from the 95% voter approval for fiscal year 2020.
Apple shareholders expressed “concern over the amount of Mr. Cook’s total target compensation due to the size of his 2021 and 2022 equity awards,” the SEC filing stated.
Investors in the Cupertino, Calif.-based iPhone maker also let it be known that they had a “preference for a higher percentage of Mr. Cook’s equity to be performance-based.”
Last year, 50% of Cook’s vesting shares were tied to the performance of Apple stock. This year, that figure will rise to 75%, according to the SEC filing.
Shares of Apple were trading about even on the Nasdaq on Friday morning. The harsh economic climate has not spared the $2.13 trillion company in the past year as its stock price fell by more than 22%.
Investors have still been rewarded in the more than 10 years since Cook took over the CEO role from the late visionary co-founder Steve Jobs.
Since 2011, the return on investment yielded by Apple stock has reached 1,212% — nearly six times that of the S&P 500 index.
In 2023, the Apple boss will earn a base salary of $3 million, $6 million in cash incentives, and $40 million in equity awards, according to the SEC filing.
Unlike in previous years, Cook’s 2023 salary will be more heavily tied to the company’s stock performance.
Last February, a company that advises shareholders urged them to vote down Cook’s nearly nine-digit 2022 payday.
Institutional Shareholders Service, one of the biggest companies that advises stock owners on how to vote their shares, flagged “significant concern” about Cook’s $82 million in stock awards for 2021.
That came on top of a $12 million cash bonus and a $3 million base salary.
Cook also racked up expenses including $700,000 for private jet trips and $630,000 for private security.
Last year, a California judge slapped a restraining order on a Virginia woman who drove cross country to the Apple CEO’s Bay Area home after more than a year in which she sent him photos of a loaded pistol and letters claiming to be the mother of his twins.
[Written in collaboration with other media outlets with information from the following sources]
