Apple CEO Tim Cook Becomes Billionaire Thanks to Apple's Success

There are just over 2,000 around the world, and now Tim Cook is one of them. According to Bloomberg calculations, the fortune of the iconic Apple CEO has exceeded $ 1 billion. This nest egg comes both from his salary last year ($ 125 million), resale of shares, dividends and other compensation ($ 650 million) and his 847,969 Apple shares, which represent approximately 0.02% of the company's capital (roughly $ 375 million). A fortune that could very quickly climb again, as he is expected to receive 560,000 new shares as a bonus later this month.

Although extremely high relative to the median income of the world's population, this amount may seem more than modest when compared to the wealth of other bosses of big tech companies. Indeed, at the top of the podium, we find Jeff Bezos (Amazon) and his 186 billion dollars, Bill Gates (former CEO of Microsoft) and his 121 billion, or Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), who exceeded a few years ago. days the 100 billion mark. Even Elon Musk, the whimsical CEO of Tesla and Space X, has more than $ 67 billion in capital, making him the 10th richest man on the planet.

Tim Cook's vision that pays off

But unlike the latter, Tim Cook did not found Apple. If he joined the company in 1998, he only took over the reins in 2011, a few months before the death of his predecessor Steve Jobs, from pancreatic cancer. Tim Cook's vision has since taken Apple to a whole new level. While it was worth $ 350 billion nine years ago, the smartphone giant now weighs nearly $ 2,000 billion, more than the entire CAC 40. It is to the new CEO that we owe in particular iPhone X, Apple Watch, AirPods, Apple Music, Apple Pay or Apple TV +, a variety of products and services that have contributed to the excellent shape of the company. For some, he fully embodies Apple's success: in March 2019, US President Donald Trump even nicknamed him “Tim Apple”.

It remains to be seen what Tim Cook intends to do with this billion dollars. Like Bill Gates, he has repeatedly said that he intended to donate the majority of his fortune to charities, which he has started to do in recent years. " We do not have a zero-sum approach to prosperity, " assured the entrepreneur when he released Apple's latest quarterly results. " Especially in times of economic crisis like this, we make sure that our success benefits others ."