Tim Cook’s compensation for the past year has been known since last month. The CEO earned $74.5 million, which consisted of his base salary of $3.0 million, stock options and bonuses of $58 million, as well as other compensation. Apple has now presented the entire payroll of its management staff, as it is required to do regularly under stock exchange regulations. Salaries of top managers
The top earners behind Cook are the new Chief Operating Officer Sabih Khan, who, like Human Resources and Retail Manager Deirdre O’Brien and Chief Legal Officer Kate Adams, earned $27 million including all bonuses. The new CFO Kevan Parekh, who took over the department from Luca Maestri at the beginning of 2025, received $22.5 million, his predecessor received $15.5 million.
…but then there are the share packages
But that’s not all, because blocks of shares, the “Restricted Stock Unit”, are also due. Unlike stock options (which you can, but don’t have to, buy at a set price and don’t necessarily make a profit depending on the company’s performance), these are transferred directly into the ownership of the respective managers. The shares granted earlier and now issued had the following values in 2025:
- Tim Cook: $158.8 million
- Kevan Parekh: $9 million
- Kate Adams: $46 million
- Sabih Khan: $46 million
- Luca Maestri: $46.9 million
- Deirdre O’Brien: $46 million
Ratio of CEO to employee salary
The financial report also shows the “CEO Pay Ratio” – this compares Cook’s compensation with that of an average employee. The latter was $139,483 in 2025, which means Cook is paid a factor of 533 more. The average value of the 100 largest US companies is only 300:1, but reaches up to 6600:1 (Starbucks). However, this “pay ratio” is difficult to compare, because a Starbucks with a lot of part-time employees has a much higher ratio than tech companies with predominantly expensive specialist employees. This applies, for example, to Microsoft (250 to 350:1), which does not employ 170,000 people in stores, which drove the number up in Apple’s case. In absolute terms, Tim Cook is the US CEO with the seventh highest salary.
