SAN FRANCISCO - AS HE'S done for the last decade, Apple Inc Chief Executive Steve Jobs took home his customary US$1 (S$1.45) annual salary in 2008, but the economic meltdown and Apple's falling stock price whacked half a billion dollars off the value of his personal holdings in the company.

Apple said in a regulatory filing on Wednesday that Mr Jobs, 53, who holds 5.5 million shares of Apple's stock, hasn't sold any of the shares since rejoining the company in 1997.

That means what he lacks in annual compensation is made up for in the enormous amount of stock he already holds - a hoard that took a beating in 2008 amid fears about the Mac and iPhone maker's vulnerability to the US recession.

Apple shares have lost more than half their value since the end of 2007, when they were trading at nearly US$200 and Mr Jobs' holdings were worth more than US$1 billion. The stock finished Wednesday's trading session down US$2.01, 2 per cent, at $91.01, meaning Mr Jobs' stake is worth around US$500 million.

A big hit by any measure, the decline still barely dents Mr Jobs' massive fortune, estimated by Forbes magazine earlier this year at US$5.7 billion and ranking him 61st on the publication's list of the richest Americans.

Most of Mr Jobs' wealth comes not from Apple but from the 138 million shares he owns of The Walt Disney Co, a 7.3 per cent stake that makes him Disney's largest individual shareholder.

Mr Jobs scored the Disney stake through a brilliant deal in which he sold Pixar Animation Studios, a company he bought from George Lucas for US$10 million in 1986, to Disney in a multibillion-dollar stock trade 20 years later.

Mr Jobs' Disney holdings are now worth US$3.2 billion, more than US$1 billion less than the stock was worth last year.

Mr Jobs has a similar relationship with Disney, where he serves on the board, as he does with Apple when it comes to pay. He doesn't take a salary for his work as a Disney director.

Apple's annual proxy filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission shows that its strategy is remarkably egalitarian when it comes to the CEO's compensation.

The company doesn't reimburse Mr Jobs for the perks that top executives usually get like home security systems or a chauffeur, but it did reward him in a big way in 1999 after he engineered an impressive turnaround at the company: Mr Jobs' bonus that year was a US$90 million Gulfstream V jet, whose operation Apple still helps pay for.

Apple said in the filing on Wednesday that it reimbursed Mr Jobs for US$871,000 in expenses in 2008 for his use of the private plane on company business. In 2007, those costs were US$776,000, and in 2006, it was US$202,000.

Mr Jobs' compensation hasn't been without controversy, however. The company was embroiled in a scandal two years ago over its mishandling of stock option awards, some of which went to Mr Jobs.

At the height of the corporate 'backdating' scandals that emerged in 2006, federal investigators began looking at Apple over possible criminal violations in the way the company handled its options, including an award of 7.5 million options given to Mr Jobs in 2001.

Mr Jobs never cashed out the options; they were cancelled two years later while they were 'underwater,' or worthless, along with other outstanding options. Instead he was given millions of shares of restricted stock that make up nearly all of his current holdings.

Prosecutors closed the criminal investigation last year without filing charges, though two former executives - former General Counsel Nancy Heinen and former Chief Financial Officer Fred Anderson - were charged by the SEC over the so-called 'backdating,' or manipulating stock awards so they look like they were issued earlier than they were.

Apple eventually took a US$84 million charge after it acknowledged it had backdated 6,428 grants between 1997 and 2002.

Mr Jobs was in the news for another reason this week when he revealed during the Macworld trade show that a hormone imbalance has caused the weight loss that made him look gaunt at recent events.

Mr Jobs said he wanted to squash rumors that he is gravely ill.

Apple said on Wednesday that its annual meeting is scheduled for Feb 25 at the company's Cupertino headquarters.

The Associated Press calculations of total pay include executives' salary, bonus, incentives, perks, above-market returns on deferred compensation and the estimated value of stock options and awards granted during the year. The calculations don't include changes in the present value of pension benefits.

Because Mr Jobs didn't get a bonus or any of those other forms of compensation in 2008, his total pay is the same as the US$1 salary the company lists in the summary compensation table of the proxy statement filed with the SEC. -- AP