{"id":214570,"date":"2026-09-04T08:18:32","date_gmt":"2026-09-04T08:18:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/214570\/"},"modified":"2026-09-04T08:18:32","modified_gmt":"2026-09-04T08:18:32","slug":"apple-ceo-john-ternus-started-tuesday-his-55-million-award-starts-next-year-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/214570\/","title":{"rendered":"Apple CEO John Ternus started Tuesday. His $55 million award starts next year"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Apple<\/a> board handed the newly minted CEO of the $4.75 trillion iPhone maker a massive new compensation package<\/a> to kick-start his tenure, with more to come if Apple\u2019s pay history<\/a> is any guide. Apple gave Ternus a salary bump to $3 million and granted him restricted stock units (RSUs) valued<\/a> at $2.5 million, prorated for the few weeks he\u2019ll serve as CEO before the end of Apple\u2019s 2026 fiscal year. The board separately approved an annual equity award for fiscal 2027 with a target value of $55 million. Three-quarters of the equity award will vest based on Apple\u2019s total shareholder return relative to other S&P 500 companies. The rest will vest on a clock, 12.5% every six months over four years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tim Cook, who after 15 years as CEO is sticking around as executive chair while Ternus finds his footing, saw his salary decrease from $3 million to $2 million, effective later this month. The Apple board approved a $45 million target equity award for him, half in RSUs that vest over four years, and half that vest based on performance.\u00a0<\/p>\n

No word yet on an annual cash bonus for Ternus. Cook collected a $12 million bonus each of the past two fiscal years, according to Apple\u2019s securities filings.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Cook precedent<\/p>\n

It was an entirely different picture the last time Apple had a CEO change, when Cook succeeded<\/a> the late Steve Jobs in 2011. Back then, Apple gave Cook 1 million RSUs with a grant date value of $376.2 million on top of a $900,000 salary that the board bumped to $1.4 million a few months after he took over the top spot. Half of the award vested five years after the award date, and the other half vested 10 years after the award date.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Apple board\u2019s decision at the time<\/a> was \u201csubjective\u201d and not based on any peer group or formula. That was in part owing to the circumstances: Jobs famously collected only $1 in salary, but held a colossal 5.5 million\u2013share stake in Apple worth billions. The board said it determined Cook\u2019s pay based on input from Jobs and the board\u2019s assessment of Cook during his interim leadership periods during Jobs\u2019 medical leave. Jobs passed away in October 2011, following his Aug. 24 resignation that year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Two years later, Cook asked the board<\/a> to add some performance conditions to his award, meaning he would forfeit a portion if he didn\u2019t achieve a stock-performance metric. The board carved out 800,000 share units from his 1 million award and divided it into 10 annual chunks of 80,000 shares apiece split half on performance. If Apple finished in the top third of the S&P 500 by shareholder return, all 80,000 units for that year vested. If they finished in the middle third, it cost him 20,000, and the bottom third cost him 40,000 shares.<\/p>\n

Ternus\u2019s award is now based on the same type of performance metric. A securities filing on Tuesday, required when an executive joins officer ranks, shows Ternus holds about 34,000 Apple shares in a trust, worth about $11.1 million at Tuesday\u2019s stock price. He also holds seven grants of restricted stock from his years running hardware engineering, covering about 305,000 shares worth about $99 million or more, depending on how the shares pay out. Nearly half are performance units that could pay double or nothing, which puts the payout range between $50 million and $148 million.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Apple board handed the newly minted CEO of the $4.75 trillion iPhone maker a massive new compensation…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":214571,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[23148],"tags":[633,2860,2861,72508,3887,2344,628],"class_list":["post-214570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-john-ternus","tag-apple","tag-ceo-salaries-and-executive-compensation","tag-compensation","tag-corporate-boards-of-directors","tag-fortune-500-companies","tag-john-ternus","tag-tim-cook"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/117211791658927476","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214570\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/214571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}