Jony Ive, Apple’s chief design officer and the man who designed many of the company’s best known products, announced on Thursday that he was leaving the company after nearly 30 years.
Ive, 52, said that although he was leaving Apple to start his own business, LoveFrom, he would still remain involved with the tech giant and Apple would be his new firm’s first client, he said.
Apple’s chief executive Tim Cook also released a statement paying tribute to Ive and confirming that his company will work on designs for Apple.
Ive’s best-known hardware designs for Apple include the 1991 Apple PowerBook 140 and the 1998 iMac, the iPod, iPad, iPhone, and Apple Watch. He was also involved in the overhaul of iPhone’s iOS and the design of Apple’s new HQ building, the Apple Park, which was opened in 2017.
But what was Jony Ive’s salary at Apple and what is his net worth as of 2019?
Jony Ive’s salary and net worth estimates
Apple has never officially disclosed Ive’s salary. However, Leander Kahney’s 2013 biography Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products, gives information about how much Ive reportedly earned in 2011.
According to Kahney’s biography, after Ive reportedly threatened to quit Apple in 2011 a number of newspaper publications revealed that the company paid him a $30 million bonus and shares worth $25 million. The biography also revealed that he was worth about $130 million in 2011.
Since 2011, no official information has been disclosed to the media or to the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) about Ive’s compensation package.
Apple’s proxy statement filed with the SEC in 2016 only gave details of the compensation package for five top executives in the fiscal year 2015: Luca Maestri (chief financial officer), Angela Ahrendts (retail), Eddy Cue (digital content), Don Riccio (hardware), and Bruce Sewell (legal), who received $1 million salary, $4 million in cash bonuses and $20 million in restricted stock units (RSUs) each.
Although the proxy statement also didn’t disclose the details of the compensation packages for several other top Apple execs, such as Phil Schiller (marketing), Craig Federighi (software), and Jeff Williams (operations), people were particularly curious about Jony Ive’s (design) salary package because Apple had never disclosed it.
However, Apple explained that the proxy disclosed the compensation package for only five execs as required by SEC and that Ive’s salary package had never been officially disclosed because he was exempt under SEC rules. Despite his position and title as chief design officer of the company, he was not a “Section 16” employee of the company.
So how much is he worth in 2019? Evidently more than $130million if that’s what he was worth in 2011. With no official information it is impossible to provide a conclusive figure. However, Celebrity Net Worth estimates that Jony Ive’s 2019 net worth is around $400million.