They could have used that $77B to fund fusion research, carbon capture research, build private space stations and put man on Mars, but no they wanted to make their already high share price even higher.
Actually a better way to think about it is that they are compensating their shareholders...
That $77B that is now returned to shareholders can be spent on whatever those shareholders want. It isn't really Apple's money to begin with... kind of the issue with being a public company. Unless of course its shareholders would look at that investment as sound, which might be a stretch given Apple's lack of background in any of those fields (maybe carbon capture given they have a great understanding of their supply chain and could already be thinking of ways to reduce their energy impact)
> That $77B that is now returned to shareholders can be spent on whatever those shareholders want. It isn't really Apple's money to begin with... kind of the issue with being a public company.
Apple and its shareholders are the same entity when discussing “whose” money it is. If shareholders want it used to do buybacks, they vote for company leadership to do that. If they want dividends, they vote for company leadership to do that. If they want to invest in travel to Mars, they vote for leadership to do that.
Saying Apple’s money belongs to shareholders is a meaningless statement. It belongs to the collection of shareholders as a whole, who have opted to elect in leaders to decide how to spend it.
Well. With such large firms, shareholders are quite a stretch of distribution. Voting proxies and the complexity of introducing a shareholder vote proposal quite drastically restricts the number of shareholders who can make stuff happen at these firms.
That is how ownership in a public company works. The more you own, the more control you have. Before you purchase, you will know what percentage you will own and you have to predict if it will be enough to enable you to accomplish your goals. Or you have to make friends with other shareholders.
The $77B didn't vanish, it went back to shareholders. Indeed Apple could have used it to fund fusion research, but this seems like a complete stretch of their expertise and capacity to execute on a project like that, the money could just have ended up being wasted on projects that went nowhere. Shareholders can cash out, the government tax the capital gains, and both entities can use the cash in the investments that seems worthy to them
the investors who get the money back through share buybacks can do that with the 77B. There is no reason for Tim Cook to be leading fusion research and everything else you listed.
