Apple’s New CEO Gets $55 Million, Then Takes the Stage to Sell a $2,400 iPhone
Apple's newest CEO walked into the top job with a $55 million equity target and eight days to prepare before stepping onto the keynote stage to pitch the most expensive iPhone the company has ever attempted to sell.
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Apple’s board built new chief executive John Ternus a pay structure that only compounds if consumers absorb the boldest iPhone pricing test in a decade. On Wednesday, September 9, eight days into the job, he steps onto the Cupertino keynote stage to sell it.
Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL | AAPL Price Prediction) disclosed the package in a Form 8-K/A filed with the SEC. Per Fortune, Ternus received a $3 million salary, a $2.5 million prorated restricted-stock grant for the balance of fiscal 2026, and a fiscal 2027 annual equity award with a target value of $55 million. Three-quarters of the annual award vests on Apple’s total shareholder return relative to the S&P 500; the rest vests 12.5% every six months over four years. Tim Cook, staying on as executive chair, saw his salary cut from $3 million to $2 million and received a $45 million target equity award.
Selling a $2,400 Foldable on Day Eight
The keynote is expected to unveil the foldable iPhone Ultra starting near $2,400, with higher-storage versions potentially exceeding $3,000. Supply is thin: production is limited to a few hundred units daily, with shipments potentially delayed until October or early November. Morgan Stanley models 6.5 million units generating roughly $14 billion in December-quarter revenue. Pro models get the A20 Pro chip and are expected to run $200 to $500 higher than iPhone 17 counterparts, the most aggressive iPhone pricing cycle in nearly a decade.
Ternus inherits a company already stretching pricing. On the fiscal Q3 2026 call, Cook framed recent hikes as forced:
“On the pricing front, we reluctantly raised prices, I would say. We did it because we’re in what I would characterize as a 100-year flood on the memory pricing with exponential increases in memory prices.”
CFO Kevan Parekh said memory alone drove the sequential margin move, adding that “more than 100% of that can be explained by the memory cost change that Tim outlined.”
Saturday’s Preorder Window Is the Verdict
CNBC’s MacKenzie Sigalos framed the handoff on Fast Money: “Tim Cook may be giving up the CEO title, but he’s not really leaving Apple. As Executive chairman… Cook is expected to stay heavily involved… serving as Apple’s diplomat in chief.” Ternus, she added, “is a hardware engineer who spent his career building Apple products” and now inherits “what could be the company’s biggest hardware cycle in more than a decade.”
The fundamentals give Ternus cushion. Fiscal Q3 revenue reached $109.42 billion, up 16.36% YoY, with EPS of $2.02 extending a nine-quarter beat streak. Shares are up 32.9% over one year and 16.3% year-to-date at $316.22. At a P/E of 42 and a $4.61 trillion market cap, execution is priced in. Preorders open Saturday. That window is the first falsifiable read on whether a $2,400 iPhone, and a $55 million equity target, will be funded by consumers.
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Gerelyn Terzo is the author of dividend investing handbook "Dividend Investing Strategies: How to Have Your Cake & Eat It Too." A veteran financial journalist, she covers agri-finance for outlets like Global AgInvesting and the broader stock market and personal finance for 24/7 Wall Street. She began at CNBC and later helped launch Fox Business in New York. Gerelyn currently resides in Woodland Park, Colorado and dabbles in nature photography as a hobby.
