Tim Cook Earns Billionaire Status as Apple Nears $2 Trillion USD in Market Valuation

Earlier this month, Apple reported a record-breaking $59.7 billion USD in revenue over the third quarter despite the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic, which led to a surge in its stock price, turning the tech giant into the most valuable company of all time. Continuing on that trend, Apple is now close to a $2 trillion USD valuation, causing its CEO Tim Cook‘s net worth to soar as well, officially turning the 59-year-old into a billionaire.

While the tech industry has created many other billionaires, such as Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Cook’s journey to earning the title is somewhat of a rarity, as he is not one of Apple’s founders. Despite being the CEO of the company, he only owns “about 0.02” percent of Apple’s shares, roughly worth $375 million USD. Another proxy filing from the company also indicates that he made an annual base salary of $3 million USD last year. The rest of his wealth comes from stock awards over the years and other forms of compensation, according to Bloomberg Billionaires.

Cook joined Apple back in 1998 and has since served in various senior roles including chief operating officer and executive vice president of worldwide sales and operations. He was promoted to CEO in August 2011 when the company’s co-founder Steve Jobs stepped down from the role, shortly before his death due to pancreatic cancer. Cook also made history in 2014, becoming the first Fortune 500 CEO to come out as gay.

In other business-related news, Airbnb is reportedly filing to go public as early as this month.