- Tim Cook, meanwhile, has become a billionaire as his net worth has eclipsed $1 billion, the Bloomberg Billionaires Index reports.
Nine years on from Steve Jobs stepping down and driving Tim Cook to the top of Apple Inc., the business is more successful than ever — and so is Tim Cook who has become a billionaire
Apple’s share price grew nearly 5 percent last week, leaving Apple, co-founded 44 years ago in the home of his parents in California, at the cusp of the stock market milestone: a market cap of almost $2 trillion.
When Jobs died it was estimated at around $350 billion. Tim Cook, meanwhile, has become a billionaire as his net worth has eclipsed $1 billion, the Bloomberg Billionaires Index reports.
Cook’s net worth calculation is focused on reviewing securities filings and comparing a typical wealthy investor’s market performance to his profits from share sales. Cook, 59, said he plans to give away much of his fortune in 2015 and has already donated millions of dollars in Apple shares. If he has made other secret charitable donations, his income may be greater.
“This tech cycle was far bigger and longer than I expected,” said Hussein Kanji, a partner with Hoxton Ventures, a venture capital company, who expressed concern about Apple’s long-term prospects after Jobs left the firm. “Apple has been the biggest cash generation machine in history, out of all these stocks.”
The market value of Apple and the wealth of Cook represents the growth of FAANG stocks, a term that did not even exist in the era of Jobs. It also comes when Cook and his fellow Big Tech CEOs — Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com Inc., Sundar Pichai of Alphabet Inc., and Facebook Inc.’s Mark Zuckerberg — face antitrust inquiries into what their critics identify when monopoly powers.
Although Bezos and Zuckerberg have enormous stakes in the companies they created, Cook ‘s journey to the 10-figure-club has been gradual. The vast majority of his estimated wealth stems from the equity awards he has won since joining Apple in 1998, where he earned plaudits to master the dynamic supply chain of the company.
His first day as CEO he got a huge award of restricted stock. The equity has paid out in annual installments, with at least two-thirds of companies in the S&P 500 relying on Apple ‘s stock. Barring a sudden drop in Apple’s stock price, Cook is expected later this month to collect his ninth payout from the competition, consisting of 560,000 shares.
Approximately half of those are likely to be withheld for taxes while the rest will raise Cook ‘s fortune by another $100 million. He actually owns directly 847,969 shares, or about 0.02 percent of Apple stock, worth around $375 million. According to Bloomberg’s figures, profits from past equity sales, dividends, and other benefits add another $650 million to his net worth.
Cook ‘s stake in their respective companies is small compared to the giant positions founders like Bezos, Zuckerberg, and Tesla Inc.’s Elon Musk power. Apple shares are widely spread to different investors and executives, and despite its workers, the most profitable corporation in the world has minted very few billionaires.
When Jobs left in August 2011 and died soon after, Cook had already filled in on several occasions as interim CEO. But there was fear among investors and analysts that Apple would not be able to innovate as much as it did in the past.
Although Apple hasn’t released a new product as revolutionary as the iPhone in the past decade, the firm is still flourishing. Cook oversaw the development of products such as the iPhone X and Apple Watch, digital services such as Apple Music, and research into emerging frontiers such as self-driving vehicles and augmented-reality glasses.
Even the pandemic, which hammered many other parts of the world, was a blessing for Apple and other major tech firms as people became even more focused on their goods and services.
Their recent success stands in contrast to the coronavirus-induced economic upheaval: an increasing string of bankruptcies, tens of millions of unemployed, and large budget deficits.
As Apple recently announced results, Cook admitted that millions of families and companies are facing hardship.
“We have no zero-sum approach to growth,” he said in a call to a meeting. “We ‘re focused on increasing the pie particularly in times like this, making sure our success isn’t just our success.”
