> If their best investment is other companies' bonds, they should (again, in theory) just return cash to investors who can buy the bonds themselves.
This is what they're effectively doing, in practice. AAPL has conducted ~$500B in share buybacks since the commencement of their buyback program in 2013. Their current cash and cash equivalents sits at ~$200B.
So, one could say that of the $700B AAPl could have returned to shareholders, it returned $500B (or most of it).
I'm not sure we should accept "returned to shareholders" at face value.
Nothing is really returned to shareholders. Shareholders own that money (as they own all Apple's assets) before the buyback. After the buyback, they no longer own the money... but share value has (in theory) not changed because it now represents a larger portion of this smaller asset.
In the case of a buyback, cash is literally returned to the shareholders who participate in the tender offer by selling their shares back to the company.
This is what they're effectively doing, in practice. AAPL has conducted ~$500B in share buybacks since the commencement of their buyback program in 2013. Their current cash and cash equivalents sits at ~$200B.
So, one could say that of the $700B AAPl could have returned to shareholders, it returned $500B (or most of it).