CUPERTINO, United States – Technology giant Apple Inc. has established an executive compensation package valued at $58 million for its new Chief Executive Officer, John Ternus, who formally took charge of the world’s most valuable consumer hardware company following the planned step-down of longtime leader Tim Cook, according to regulatory disclosures submitted to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Wednesday, September 2, 2026.
The executive transition, initially announced in April, took formal effect on Tuesday, September 1, 2026, concluding Cook’s 15-year tenure as chief executive and elevating Ternus, a 25-year Apple veteran who previously directed the company’s hardware engineering division across the Mac, iPhone, and iPad portfolios.
Okay News reports that under the terms filed with the SEC, Ternus will receive an annual base salary of $3 million alongside equity awards valued at $55 million for the company’s fiscal 2027, which commences in October.
To align executive compensation with capital market performance, Apple disclosed that 75 percent of Ternus’s equity grant will be allocated in performance-based restricted stock units (RSUs) that vest according to Apple’s total shareholder return relative to fellow constituents of the S&P 500 index. The remaining 25 percent will be distributed as time-based RSUs vesting semiannually in equal tranches of 12.5 percent over a four-year horizon, supplemented by a prorated $2.5 million RSU grant for his executive service in the closing month of fiscal 2026.
Concurrently, Apple detailed the contractual arrangement for Tim Cook as he transitions into his new capacity as Executive Chairman. Cook’s annual base salary will adjust to $2 million effective September 26, 2026, alongside a target equity grant of $45 million for fiscal 2027.
In his new executive chairmanship, Cook is slated to focus heavily on international government relations, regulatory diplomacy, and global supply-chain stewardship amid intensifying antitrust scrutiny and cross-border trade friction across major global markets.
Cook’s departure from the top executive post caps one of the most commercially lucrative corporate tenures in modern business history. Taking the helm in August 2011 shortly before the passing of co-founder Steve Jobs, Cook expanded Apple’s market valuation from approximately $350 billion to over $4.7 trillion, delivering an equity return of nearly 2,300 percent as split-adjusted share prices climbed from under $15 to north of $300.
While proprietary hardware anchored by the iPhone remained the bedrock of Apple’s earnings during Cook’s leadership, the outgoing chief executive successfully diversified revenue by building out a high-margin Services ecosystem—spanning the App Store, Apple Pay, Apple Music, and Apple TV—alongside category-defining wearables such as the Apple Watch and AirPods.
Ternus assumes executive leadership at a delicate strategic juncture characterized by elevated market expectations and intensifying competition in generative artificial intelligence, where Apple has moved to integrate external foundational architectures, including partnerships with Alphabet’s Google Gemini models and cloud infrastructure, while advancing its proprietary Apple Intelligence capabilities.
Wall Street analysts note that with Apple trading at roughly 36 times earnings against an S&P 500 average of 30, Ternus faces the immediate imperative of demonstrating architectural innovation and defending device margins across hardware cycles.
The new chief executive is scheduled to make his first major public address to global consumers, developers, and shareholders on September 9, 2026, during a dedicated corporate broadcast event dubbed “Surprise and Shine.”
