John Ternus Apple CEO pay has been set at a $3 million salary, with a separate equity award targeting $55 million for fiscal 2027, as the Apple board formally launched his tenure at the $4.75 trillion company.
Ternus started in the role on Tuesday. The board also granted him restricted stock units valued at $2.5 million, prorated to cover the few weeks remaining before the end of Apple’s 2026 fiscal year.
How the John Ternus Apple CEO pay package is structured
Three-quarters of the $55 million fiscal 2027 equity award will vest based on Apple’s total shareholder return relative to other S&P 500 companies. The remaining quarter vests on a fixed schedule, at 12.5% every six months over four years.
No cash bonus has been announced for Ternus. His predecessor Tim Cook collected a $12 million bonus in each of the past two fiscal years, according to Apple’s securities filings.
Cook is staying on as executive chair while Ternus settles into the chief executive role. His salary falls from $3 million to $2 million, effective later this month. The board approved a $45 million target equity award for Cook, split equally between performance-based and time-vested restricted stock units over four years.
A different approach from the Cook succession in 2011
The structure contrasts sharply with how Apple handled Cook’s own appointment when he succeeded Steve Jobs. At that time, the board awarded Cook one million restricted stock units with a grant date value of $376.2 million, on top of a $900,000 salary that was later raised to $1.4 million.
Half of that award vested five years after the grant date; the other half vested after ten years. The board described the decision as “subjective,” with no peer group comparison or formula applied.
The circumstances were unusual. Jobs collected only $1 in salary but held a 5.5 million-share stake in Apple worth billions. The board said it determined Cook’s pay based on input from Jobs and its own assessment of Cook during his interim leadership periods.
Two years into his tenure, Cook asked the board to attach performance conditions to his award. The board carved out 800,000 of his one million share units and divided them into ten annual chunks of 80,000 shares each, half subject to a shareholder-return target. If Apple finished in the top third of the S&P 500 by total shareholder return, all 80,000 units for that year vested; the middle third cost him 20,000 shares; the bottom third cost him 40,000.
Ternus’ award uses the same type of performance metric.
A securities filing published Tuesday, required when an executive joins officer ranks, shows Ternus holds about 34,000 Apple shares in a trust, worth approximately $11.1 million at Tuesday’s closing price. He also holds seven restricted stock grants from his years running hardware engineering, covering about 305,000 shares valued at roughly $99 million or more depending on performance outcomes. Nearly half are performance units that could pay double or nothing, putting the total payout range between $50 million and $148 million.
The $55 million fiscal 2027 target equity award requires board approval at the start of that fiscal year.
