Apple pays CEO Steve Jobs $1 for 2009, but value of his stake in the company tops $1 billion

Apple CEO Steve Jobs takes $1 salary in 2009

SEATTLE — Apple Inc. Chief Executive Steve Jobs was paid his customary $1 annual salary in 2009, but Apple’s strength through a rough economic climate returned the value of his personal holdings in the company to pre-meltdown levels.

Jobs does not get a bonus or reimbursement for perks many other CEOs accept, such as personal security, according to a regulatory filing made Wednesday. Apple said it reimbursed Jobs $4,000 for company travel on his $90 million Gulfstream V jet, which he received as a bonus in 1999.

That’s far less than the $871,000 Apple reimbursed Jobs in 2008. The CEO took nearly six months off in 2009 for medical leave, during which time he received a liver transplant. He returned to work at the company’s Cupertino, Calif., headquarters part-time at the end of June.

Jobs, 54, holds 5.5 million shares of Apple’s stock. He has not sold any shares since he rejoined the company in 1997, nor has he been awarded any new equity since 2003.

In 2008, the value of Jobs’ stake in the company he founded was cut in half as investors worried Apple’s pricey gadgets might not fare well through the U.S. recession. But shares of the maker of iPods, iPhones and Mac computers gained about 42 percent during the 2009 fiscal year that ended in September, and at the close of trading Wednesday, when Apple’s stock reached $202.10, Jobs’ holdings were worth about $1.1 billion.

Jobs is also the largest individual shareholder of The Walt Disney Co. His 7.4 percent stake is currently worth about $4.5 billion.

At an annual meeting scheduled for Feb. 25, Apple shareholders will for the first time have a chance to cast an advisory vote on the company’s executive compensation plans.

Shareholders have submitted two other proposals to be voted on at the meeting. One calls for a detailed environmental sustainability report, and the other for a board committee devoted to that issue, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Wednesday.