Tim Cook Now A Billionaire After Apple Share Surge

Tim Cook has been the head of Apple for nine years, ever since he took over the CEO role in August 2011, due to the ill health of Steve Jobs – who then passed away weeks later.

Over the years in charge, Cook’s salary at Apple has gone up and down, depending on how well Apple’s share price has performed.

But now it has been revealed that Tim Cook has become a billionaire after his estimated net worth – as calculated by the Bloomberg Billionaires index – surged thanks to increases in Apple share price last week, which saw the iPad maker move closer to the $2 trillion mark.

Money, money, money

It should be remembered that it was only back in August 2018, when Apple became the first publicly listed US company worth $1 trillion (£770bn), after its share price was buoyed by a stronger-than-expected earnings report.

But now Apple’s market cap is currently around the $1.9 trillion mark.

According to CNN, its shares are up nearly 54 percent so far this year to almost $451 each.

Cook is therefore now worth $1 billion and joins fellow tech billionaires such as Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, although he has some catching up to do.

Zuckerberg is said to be worth approximately $100 billion (£76 billion), whereas Bezos is said to be worth $178 billion and is the world’s richest man.

Google’s co-founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who stepped down from their executive roles in December 2019, are worth about $71.7 billion and $69.5 billion, respectively.

Cook’s elevation to the billionaire club is rare, as he is not actually a founder of a tech company, CNN reported.

Also, he only directly owns “about 0.02 percent of Apple shares, worth around $375 million,” according to Bloomberg Billionaires.

Cook owns 847,969 shares in Apple.

Last year, Cook’s annual base salary was $3 million, according to a proxy filing made by Apple, but he took home more than $125m (£96m) last year as part of his pay package.

Quiz: How well do you know Apple?