Apple’s new chief executive is paid on a tighter leash than the man he replaces. The Form 8-K/A Apple filed on 1 September 2026 — timestamped 16:30:35 New York time, half an hour after the closing bell — set John Ternus‘s salary at $3 million and his fiscal 2027 target equity award at $55 million, 75% of it vesting on Apple’s total shareholder return relative to other companies in the S&P 500. Tim Cook, moving to Executive Chair, takes a $45 million award split 50/50. Run the arithmetic and an oddity falls out: Cook’s unconditional, time-based equity is worth $22.5 million against Ternus’s $13.75 million. The Executive Chair’s guaranteed stock is roughly 64% larger than the new CEO’s.
That asymmetry cuts against the reflex reading that a succession showers the successor. Ternus’s package is bigger in total — $58 million against $47 million at target — but far more of it is contingent. And because the amendment landed after the close, Tuesday’s tape was no verdict on it. Apple rose 2.61% to $325.13, the only large gainer in a red megacap session in which Nvidia fell 1.51% and Tesla 3.22%, per stockanalysis.com. Whatever drove that move, the pay package was not yet public.
What the filing says
The transition was set out in Apple’s Form 8-K of 20 April 2026, filed when Apple announced the handover in April. The board appointed Ternus, then 50 and Senior Vice President of Hardware Engineering, on 17 April, with Arthur Levinson moving from Chairman to Lead Independent Director. Apple promised an amendment carrying the pay detail “within four business days after the information is determined.”
That amendment arrived 134 days later, on the day Ternus started: shareholders learned what their CEO costs after he had the job. Cook’s $2 million salary begins 26 September, the close of Apple’s fiscal 2026.
The Form 3 is more revealing
Ternus’s Form 3, filed the same day, shows him holding just 34,155 Apple shares outright through his trust — about $11.1 million, roughly a fifth of one year’s target award. Against that sit 305,171 unvested restricted stock units, worth about $99.2 million at target and at $325.13. Close to 90% of his Apple equity is unvested, and several tranches are performance RSUs paying between 0% and 200% of target. A separate Form 4 records the prorated first-day grant: 7,690 units, an implied $325.10 against the $325.13 close.
Apple has not commented beyond the filing, signed by Jennifer Newstead, Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Government Affairs. Its public framing remains April’s. “John Ternus has the mind of an engineer, the soul of an innovator, and the heart to lead with integrity and with honor,” Cook said in Apple’s announcement. Levinson called him “the best possible leader to succeed Tim.” Ternus was shorter: “I am profoundly grateful for this opportunity to carry Apple’s mission forward.”
Structure matters more than the total
For institutional holders, the weighting is the story. A 75% performance loading means Ternus is paid not for Apple going up, but for Apple going up more than the field. The drafting is careful where it counts: the benchmark is “other companies in the S&P 500,” excluding Apple from its own comparator set. At roughly $4.75 trillion, a self-referential benchmark would have let index weight do the work performance is meant to do.
Having followed this succession since the April filing, the detail I keep returning to is Cook’s retirement clause. If he retires on or after the first anniversary of the fiscal 2027 grant date, his award still vests, subject to performance, but settles on the original schedule. That is a soft one-year handcuff and the closest thing to a public timetable for his exit: leaving earlier puts $45 million at risk. Expect him in the chair into fiscal 2028.
The open question is what Ternus does with a mandate priced on relative outperformance while carrying the AI backlog he inherits. A CEO paid to beat the index has more reason to take swings than one paid to hold a franchise — arguably the point of the 75/25 split, and something that sharpens the bull and bear cases into the handover, in a cohort where Nvidia’s own quarter reset what megacap growth looks like.
