Apple CEO Tim Cook just sold 13% of his stock for $42 million after taxes

• Apple CEO Tim Cook just sold $88 million of his stock, earning about $41.5 million after taxes.
• The iPhone maker's boss cashed in 13% of his stake, but still owns shares worth $570 million.

Apple CEO Tim Cook has cashed in 13% of his stake in the iPhone maker for about $41.5 million after taxes, marking his biggest share sale in over two years.

The technology titan's boss has sold 511,000 shares of Apple this month, at prices between $170 and $174, a regulatory filing revealed on Wednesday. The disposals generated around $88 million of gross proceeds, but roughly $44 million was withheld by Apple to cover the taxes incurred.

Cook was awarded restricted stock units (RSUs) in September 2020 that would only convert into common stock if he met certain performance goals. His target was to achieve a total shareholder return (TSR) — Apple's stock-price performance with dividends reinvested — in the 55th percentile of S&P 500 companies over a three-year period, in which case he would receive 334,000 RSUs.

In fact, Apple's TSR was 54.1% over the last three fiscal years, ranking it 141st of 480 S&P companies, or in the 70th percentile. As a result, Cook saw 511,000 RSUs vest on October 1, or about 53% more than his target amount.

Cook promptly cashed out the shares under a trading plan he adopted in November last year. In other words, he scheduled the sales more than 10 months ago, regardless of how Apple performed in the interim.

The executive has made far larger disposals in the past. For example, he sold $752 million worth of Apple stock in August 2021, netting himself around $355 million after taxes.

Following his latest trades, Cook owns about 3.3 million Apple shares, a position worth $570 million as of Wednesday's close.

Apple's stock price surged to record highs of around $200 this summer, lifting the market capitalization of the world's most valuable public company to $3.1 trillion. It has retreated to about $174 since then, but has still climbed 34% this year. Along with the likes of Tesla and Nvidia, Apple is a member of the "Magnificent Seven" stocks that have fueled the market's gains this year.

The Big Tech stock's outperformance has boosted the likes of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway. The famed investor's company owns a nearly 6% stake in Apple worth over $170 billion today — roughly half the value of its entire stock portfolio.

Perhaps unsurprisingly given the value that Cook has created for shareholders, Buffett hailed the Apple chief this spring as "one of the classiest CEOs" and "one of the greatest managers" in history.