Apple released its proxy materials ahead of its annual shareholder’s meeting Monday. Contained in the small print is lots of detail about the compensation of its most important executives and board members, including a note about the raise that CEO Tim Cook got in November.
Cook was making $ 900,000 a year when he was appointed CEO in August. But in November, Apple gave him a hefty raise that put his base salary (not including bonuses or other compensation) at $ 1.4 million. Cook wasn’t the only one who got a raise either. According to the proxy filing:
In November 2011, the Compensation Committee determined that it was appropriate to increase the base salary of Mr. Cook to $ 1,400,000 from $ 900,000 and to increase the base salaries of the other members of the executive team, including Messrs. [Eddy] Cue, [Peter] Oppenheimer, and [Scott] Forstall, to $ 800,000 from $ 700,000.
A salary of $ 1.4 million is far more than Steve Jobs’ $ 1 salary. But then again, Jobs was still fabulously wealthy, thanks to his ownership and subsequent sale of Pixar to Disney. He also had plenty of other compensation from the company as well as tons of stock, though he sold none of it after he returned to the company in 1997, according to Apple.
The raise puts Cook’s base salary at the high end of fellow tech CEOs. Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer made $ 682,500 in base salary in 2011, Oracle’s Larry Ellison makes a Jobs-like $ 1 a year (again this doesn’t include bonuses or other awards). Former IBM CEO Sam Palmisano’s salary last year was $ 1.8 million.
It was reported earlier that Apple gave Cook a grant of 1 million shares of stock in August when he assumed the role of CEO when Jobs stepped down.
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