Apple Executives Dominate Highest-Paid List Among S&P 500 Companies
Bloomberg Businesweek reports that a survey of executive compensation at Standard & Poor's 500 companies for fiscal 2012 shows four Apple executives holding down the second, third, fourth, and fifth slots behind Oracle CEO Larry Ellison. The group of Apple executives, which does not include CEO Tim Cook, benefited from a massive stock grant shortly after the death of Steve Jobs, with the grants vesting in equal parts in 2013 and 2016 as incentives to keep the executives at the company.
Four of the five highest-paid employees at Standard & Poor’s 500 companies aren’t chief executive officers. They’re Apple Inc. senior lieutenants receiving compensation packages designed to keep management intact in an increasingly competitive industry.
The four executives are Bob Mansfield, Bruce Sewell, Jeffrey Williams and Peter Oppenheimer, according to fiscal 2012 compensation figures for top earners filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. About 80 percent of S&P 500 companies had submitted their numbers as of April 12.
The four Apple executives each received 150,000 shares as part of their grants, with the shares worth approximately $64 million each at today's stock price. Salary, bonuses, and other compensation pushed 2012 totals for Sewell, Williams, and Oppenheimer close to $70 million. Mansfield topped the group of Apple executives with total compensation of $85.5 million, as he received accelerated vesting of shares as an incentive to remain at Apple after he had announced his retirement.

Two other Apple executives saw major stock grants in November 2011, with marketing chief Phil Schiller receiving the same 150,000 restricted stock units as the other senior executives and Internet Software and Service head Eddy Cue receiving 100,000 units just two months after receiving another 100,000 units in recognition of his promotion to the senior vice president level. Schiller and Cue were not, however, included in Bloomberg Businessweek's rankings, as their total compensation is not publicly reported by Apple.
Cook ranked 1016th on this year's list with total compensation of $4.17 million, although he is benefiting from a previous award of one million restricted stock units made when he became CEO. Those units are worth $425 million at today's stock price, with half of the units vesting in 2016 and the remaining half vesting in 2021.
Popular Stories
Despite being more than two years old, Apple's AirPods Pro 2 still dominate the premium wireless‑earbud space, thanks to a potent mix of top‑tier audio, class‑leading noise cancellation, and Apple's habit of delivering major new features through software updates. With AirPods Pro 3 widely expected to arrive in 2025, prospective buyers now face a familiar dilemma: snap up the proven...
Apple plans to release an all-new super thin iPhone this year, debuting it alongside the iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone 17 Pro Max. We've seen pictures of dummy models, cases, and renders with the design, but Lewis Hilsenteger of Unbox Therapy today showed off newer dummy models that give us a better idea of just how thin the "iPhone 17 Air" will be.
The iPhone 17 Air is expected to be ...
If you missed the video showing dummy models of Apple's all-new super thin iPhone 17 Air that's expected later this year, Sonny Dickson this morning shared some further images of the device in close alignment with the other dummy models in the iPhone 17 lineup, indicating just how thin it is likely to be in comparison.
The iPhone 17 Air is expected to be around 5.5mm thick – with a thicker ...
A developer has demonstrated Windows 11 ARM running on an M2 iPad Air using emulation, which has become much easier since the EU's Digital Markets Act (DMA) regulations came into effect.
As spotted by Windows Latest, NTDev shared an instance of the emulation on social media and posted a video on YouTube (embedded below) demonstrating it in action. The achievement relies on new EU regulatory...
While the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are not expected to launch until September, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices.
Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models as of April 2025:
Aluminum frame: iPhone 17 Pro models are rumored to have an aluminum frame, whereas the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro models have a titanium frame, and the iPhone ...
Apple's iPhone development roadmap runs several years into the future and the company is continually working with suppliers on several successive iPhone models simultaneously, which is why we often get rumored features months ahead of launch. The iPhone 17 series is no different, and we already have a good idea of what to expect from Apple's 2025 smartphone lineup.
If you skipped the iPhone...
Apple seeded the third beta of iOS 18.5 to developers today, and so far the software update includes only a few minor changes.
The changes are in the Mail and Settings apps.
In the Mail app, you can now easily turn off contact photos directly within the app, by tapping on the circle with three dots in the top-right corner.
In the Settings app, AppleCare+ coverage information is more...
While the so-called "iPhone 17 Air" is not expected to launch until September, there are already plenty of rumors about the ultra-thin device.
Overall, the iPhone 17 Air sounds like a mixed bag. While the device is expected to have an impressively thin and light design, rumors indicate it will have some compromises compared to iPhone 17 Pro models, including only a single rear camera, a...