Apple Form 4: Ternus's first CEO grant is $55 million, three-quarters tied to shareholder return
Six Form 4s filed Tuesday show John Ternus got 161,258 stock units and Executive Chair Tim Cook 131,938. At Friday's close they come to $55.0 million and $45.0 million, while the other senior executives' awards rose 30% in dollars on fewer shares.
Apple filed six Form 4s on Tuesday showing the annual stock awards it granted on September 27, the first round since John Ternus took over as chief executive on September 1 and Tim Cook became executive chair. Ternus received 161,258 restricted stock units. Valued at Apple's last close before the grant, $341.07 on Friday, September 25, that is $55.0 million. Cook received 131,938 units, or $45.0 million.
Those round numbers are not a coincidence of our rounding. Every award in this year's filings, and every one in last year's, converts to a round dollar figure ($25 million, $32.5 million, $50 million and so on) at the prior Friday's close, to within a few thousand dollars. The unit counts are consistent with Apple setting each award in dollars and dividing by that price. That makes the dollar figure the number to compare, and it tells a different story from the share counts.
The awards, this year and last
| Executive | 2025 units | 2025 value | 2026 units | 2026 value | Tied to performance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chief executive (Cook in 2025, Ternus in 2026) | 195,727 | $50.0M | 161,258 | $55.0M | 75% |
| Tim Cook, executive chair (2026) | n/a | n/a | 131,938 | $45.0M | 50% |
| Each senior vice president | 97,864 | $25.0M | 95,290 | $32.5M | 50% |
2025 values use the September 26, 2025 close of $255.46; 2026 values use the September 25, 2026 close of $341.07. The 2026 senior vice presidents are COO Sabih Khan, CFO Kevan Parekh, Deirdre O'Brien and general counsel Jennifer Newstead; in 2025 the group was Khan, Parekh, O'Brien and then-general counsel Katherine Adams.
What the filings show
Fewer shares, more money. Each senior vice president's award fell 2.6% in units, from 97,864 to 95,290. In dollars it rose 30%, from $25.0 million to $32.5 million, because the stock rose about 33.5% between the two grant dates. Read on share counts alone, this year looks like a trim. It is the opposite.
The CEO job pays more, the CEO gets fewer shares. Ternus's award is 17.6% smaller than Cook's final CEO grant in units but 10% larger in dollars. It keeps the same split Cook had: one time-vesting unit for every three performance units. Of Ternus's $55.0 million, $41.25 million (120,943 units) is performance-based. Between 0% and 200% of those units can vest on October 1, 2029, depending on Apple's total shareholder return relative to other companies over fiscal 2027 through fiscal 2029, according to the filing.
Cook's guaranteed slice is bigger than the new CEO's. Cook's executive-chair award is split evenly, so his time-vesting portion is 65,969 units, about $22.5 million. Ternus's is 40,315 units, about $13.75 million. Cook's total is $10 million below Ternus's, but more of it vests just for staying.
The vesting got faster. Last year's time-based units settle in thirds on April 1 of 2028, 2029 and 2030. This year's vest 12.5% on April 15, 2027 and then every six months through October 15, 2030. The first time-based shares now vest about six and a half months after the grant, instead of two and a half years after it.
Across the six executives, the 2026 awards total 674,356 units, about $230 million at the grant-eve price, against about $150 million for five executives in 2025.
The stock and the caveats
Apple closed Wednesday at $333.02, up 1.10%, according to Nasdaq, which puts Ternus's award at about $53.7 million today. None of these filings is a purchase or a sale: they report grants, and no shares change hands until the units vest. The dollar values here are simple share-price arithmetic. The figures Apple reports in its proxy statement will use accounting fair values, which for the performance units depend on a valuation model and will differ.
Separately, TipRanks data shows Rep. Pete Sessions disclosed a sale of Apple stock worth $100,001 to $250,000, traded September 22 and disclosed September 23. Members of Congress have up to 45 days to disclose trades, and a single disclosure is not a read on the company. Our congressional trades tracker has the full list. For the broader picture on the company, see what is going on with Apple stock.
What we're watching
- Apple's next proxy statement, which will give the board's reasoning for the CEO and executive-chair awards and their accounting values.
Apple's filing history is on SEC EDGAR.
Sources: filings via SEC EDGAR (Apple Form 4s filed September 29, 2026 and September 30, 2025; 8-K filed April 20, 2026); share prices via Nasdaq and Yahoo Finance; congressional trades via TipRanks (STOCK Act disclosures). Dollar values and percentage changes are our calculations from the filed unit counts and closing prices. Some data may be delayed. This is market information, not investment advice.
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