New York (AFP)

Nine years after being appointed head of Apple, Tim Cook has joined the very closed club of billionaires thanks to the soaring of the apple brand on Wall Street.

The company fell on the stock market on Tuesday, like the other tech giants, but its capitalization stands at 1.870 billion dollars, making it the most expensive American group, ahead of Amazon, Microsoft and Alphabet, the parent company of Google and YouTube.

Apple could soon become the first American company to surpass the $ 2,000 billion mark.

Even more than its competitors, Apple has seen its turnover and profits rise thanks to the confinement.

"Apple has been very successful in developing its platforms to mitigate the fact that iPhone sales have leveled off, by creating products to accompany its smartphone and services to improve it," explains Avi Greengart of Techsponential.

- Philanthropy -

Apple's happiness is therefore that of Mr. Cook, 59, most of whose fortune comes from shares granted to him since his debut at Apple in 1998.

In a document sent to the US stock market policeman in January, it was specified that he owned 847,969 Apple securities, which corresponds to approximately $ 371 million at Tuesday's closing price ($ 437.50).

According to calculations made by Bloomberg from regulatory and market performance analysis documents, the chief executive also received $ 650 million from previous sales of shares, dividends and various financial compensation.

His annual salary was $ 3 million in 2019 and came with a bonus of $ 7.6 million.

Barring a tumble on Wall Street in the coming days, Mr. Cook should also receive 560,000 additional shares before the end of the month.

He pledged in 2015 to donate most of his wealth, which could be lower than estimated if the leader had performed philanthropic actions without publicly disclosing them.

- Far from Bezos -

Regardless, Tim Cook remains far from the top of Bloomberg's billionaire rankings, dominated by Amazon boss Jeff Bezos with $ 186 billion, followed by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates ($ 121 billion). and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg ($ 99.7 billion).

But these famous leaders participated in the creation of their respective companies.

Mr. Cook "didn't invent anything, but he held the rudder with a firm hand, steering the boat and keeping the corporate culture alive," says Laura Martin of Needham & Company.

"His great merit is to have been able to make the inventions of Steve Jobs bear fruit," she adds.

Prior to joining Apple, Tim Cook held positions at IBM, Intelligent Electronics and Compaq. In August 2011, he succeeded the charismatic founder Steve Jobs, of whom he was until then the right-hand man.

At the time of Mr. Jobs' death in October 2011, Apple was worth around $ 350 million on Wall Street.

- Future -

Experts are divided on whether Apple can further expand its empire.

For Daniel Ives of Wedbush Securites, Apple "has an opportunity as it only presents once a decade in the next 12 to 18 months", estimating that more than a third of iPhones in circulation in the world could be replaced by more recent models.

The future of the company necessarily passes through China, where the brand manufactures and sells a large part of its products.

Tensions between Washington and Beijing, including the threat of the Trump administration to ban the TikTok and WeChat applications in the United States, owned by Chinese groups, have some experts fear negative repercussions for the brand.

"If Apple cannot offer WeChat, it will be difficult for it to sell iPhones in China because it is almost a secondary operating system," observes Greengart.

The firm would however have the means to deal with possible Chinese reprisals, as it is established in the country, judges the expert.

© 2020 AFP