It was only in August 2020 that Apple reached a $2 trillion market capitalization. Now, it keeps hovering around $3 trillion as a market cap. Along with the Apple company, Tim Cook benefited from Apple’s excellent 2021.
Apple Rides the Stock Market Wave
In 2021, the U.S. stock market roared. With Apple introducing popular new products that drove it to records of its own.
As Felix Richter reports for Statista:
Apple became the first company to hit a market capitalization of $3 trillion. During the beginning of last week, its share price briefly climbed to $182.88. Enough to reach said milestone. Apple is the first company in the world ever to reach a market cap of $3 trillion. After becoming the second to reach $2 trillion in August 2020. Saudi Arabian oil and gas giant Saudi Aramco had made the first ascent to $2 trillion in December 2019.
Despite the challenges posed by the coronavirus pandemic, Apple’s share price climbed by 34 percent in 2021. Following an astonishing 81-percent surge in 2020. The entire tech industry has proven relatively immune to the negative impact of the COVID crisis. As lockdowns and physical distancing made technology even more central to many people’s lives.
The following chart illustrates Apple’s unparalleled rise from a struggling $5-billion company in 2000 to world-beating powerhouse over the past 21 years, while also highlighting some of the most notable product launches along the way.
A Fair Ratio with Employees? Tim Cook Benefits from Apple’s Excellent 2021
Due to Apple’s sterling results, CEO Tim Cook has also benefited. But, what about the ratio of his compensation to the average Apple employee?
According to Statista’s Felix Richter:
According to an official statement filed with the SEC last week, Tim Cook’s job of leading the world’s most valuable company paid off handsomely in 2021. Cook, who succeeded Steve Jobs as Apple CEO in 2011, saw his pay package swell to $98.7 million last year. Mainly thanks to a stock award worth $82 million at the day of the grant. As Apple notes in the filing, the company’s median employee’s total compensation was $68,254 in 2021. Resulting in a staggering CEO-to-worker pay ratio of 1,447 to 1. Without his stock award, Cook would have out-earned his employees 240 to 1, which is still sizeable but actually below the S&P 500 average.
The latest Executive Paywatch report, published by the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), shows that the average CEO-to-worker pay ratio at S&P 500 companies was 299 to 1 in 2020, making Tim Cook’s latest paycheck stand out even among fellow CEOs. While it’s clear that top executives should earn more, nay significantly more, than average workers, there’s growing criticism of the ever-widening gap between CEO compensation and regular worker pay.
