New Apple CEO John Ternus could earn $58 million

John Ternus, the engineer who became Apple's chief executive on Tuesday, will be paid a $3 million salary and receive an equity award targeting $55 million — a package Bloomberg values at about $58 million, and one that pays out fully only if Apple beats the wider market.

Billionaire Tim Cook, who ran the company for fifteen years, stays on as executive chairman on a $2 million salary and a $45 million equity target, worth roughly $47 million in total. Both sets of terms were filed with regulators on the day of the handover. Neither figure is guaranteed. Both are target values, and the equity portions depend on performance that has not yet happened.

Three-quarters of Ternus's equity is performance-based, vesting on Apple's total shareholder return relative to the rest of the S&P 500. The remaining quarter vests semiannually in 12.5 percent instalments over four years. He also received a prorated award targeting $2.5 million for his final weeks of fiscal 2026.

The benchmark is harder than it sounds. Apple is among the largest constituents of the S&P 500, so beating it by any meaningful margin means beating an index Apple substantially contributes to. If the market runs and Apple lags, the award shrinks.

Cook's award is split 50-50 half performance-based on the same relative-return measure, half time-vesting. The outgoing chief executive is on a less performance-weighted structure than the man replacing him. Boards typically weight chairman awards less heavily than CEO awards, on the reasoning that a chairman has less direct control over results. At $47 million, the gap is still worth noting.

It matters more than it looks. Cook is worth somewhere between $2.0 billion and $3.0 billion depending on the tracker, with Forbes placing him near $2.5–2.9 billion in 2026. But almost none of that is ownership: April filings showed him holding about 3.28 million Apple shares, roughly 0.02 percent of the company. His fortune is accumulated pay rather than a founder's stake, which leaves performance conditions doing nearly all the work of tying him to Apple's results.

Cook arrived under no such constraint. In 2011 he received one million restricted stock units worth $376.2 million with no performance conditions, then asked in 2013 for conditions to be added. The structure he adopted voluntarily is now Apple's default. His fiscal 2025 compensation was $74.3 million.

Cook's remit includes engaging policymakers and regulators worldwide, with Apple facing the EU's Digital Markets Act and antitrust proceedings across several jurisdictions. Paying $47 million for that indicates where the board locates its risk.