Apple CEO Tim Cook takes 99% pay cut in 2012

Apple CEO Tim Cook earned $4.17 million in 2012, 99 percent less than the year before, because this year’s compensation package did not include the stock awards he received in 2011, Bloomberg News reported.

In 2011, Cook received $378 million, including a base salary of $900,000 and $376.2 million in stock awards that he’ll be eligible to cash in over the next ten years, Bloomberg News reported.

The shares made him the highest-paid US CEO in 2011, the Associated Press reported.

This year, he received $2.8 million in incentive plan compensation but no stock awards, Bloomberg News reported. Cook’s compensation also included $1.36 million in salary – a pay raise of 51 percent for his first full year in the top spot after taking over from Apple founder Steve Jobs, who died in Oct. 2011.

"Despite this increase, the target annual cash compensation for Mr. Cook remains significantly below the median annual cash compensation level for CEOs at peer companies," Apple said today in regulatory filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Apple CEOs also don’t receive many perks that swell the pay packages of other companies’ top executives, like country club fees and private use of company aircraft, the AP reported.

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