Apple wasted $100,000,000,000 on Tim Cook's 'single biggest mistake' as CEO

One analyst signals Apple's $100,000,000,000 dividend payments in 2014 to be Tim Cook's 'biggest mistake', and provides some alternative suggestions that seem genius over ten years later.

The biggest companies in the world are bound to take risks with their money in order to grow, and institutions as large as Amazon have even come close to failure due to mismanagement of money from its key figures.

While Apple have had their fair share of disappointing releases that have been quickly branded failures, there's not too much that you could criticize the company for from a growth perspective over the past decade and beyond.

While on top of the tech world in 2014, however, Apple under Tim Cook's new leadership decided to pay out over $100,000,000,000 in stock dividends and many consider this to be the company's biggest ever mistake.

One such voice supporting this viewpoint is former Forbes contributor Eric Jackson, who proposed the notion in an opinion piece that also tables a few better uses of the money that would leave Apple in a better state.

Many criticized Tim Cook's decision to pay out $100 billion in dividends in 2014, although maybe it was the right decision (Chris Jackson/Getty Images)

What Jackson likely didn't realize at the time though is how much more successful his predictions would have made the company ten years later, with one in particular standing out as a move that, while obvious at the time, feels like a real missed opportunity now.

Jackson proposes that had Apple not given the $100 billion away in dividends it would have been left with around a quarter of a trillion dollars in available cash - which is higher than the current value of roughly $162 billion, as of the most recent reports.

He suggests five different - and importantly more profitable - ways for Apple to spend the cash instead, which include purchasing Twitter and Pinterest, investing in better batteries, and researching new unique features for the iPhone.

What stands out the most, however, is Jackson's suggestion to buy Tesla at a price of $45,000,000,000 - what he reports is a 50% premium over the electric car company's closing price the day before.

Ten years later that measly $45 billion has turned into a staggering $1,328,000,000,000 - representing a 2,851% increase on the suggested purchase price over just ten years.

Purchasing Tesla for just $45 billion could have made Apple over $1.3 trillion a decade later (Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images)

Of course, there's no guarantee that the company would have grown as much with Apple at the helm, but it's hard not to see missing out on what is now the eighth most valuable company worldwide as a bit of a mistake.

Of course, Apple isn't doing too poorly themselves, sitting right at the top of the list as the world's most valuable company, but even Jackson himself has wildly underestimated how the company would do having ignored his advice.

"They wouldn't have much revenue to show for that $119 billion," Jackson outlines as a reflection of his prior spending advice, "but how much higher would Apple's market cap be than the $700 billion it is today? If Apple owned Tesla, Twitter and Pinterest? That would be worth another $50 - 100 billion in stock value."

Over a decade later Apple has a market cap of $3,432,000,000,000, marking a 390% increase over their 2014 value, and more than if you combined the values of Apple then alongside Tesla, Twitter, and Pinterest now. Maybe this so-called 'mistake' has instead shown to be a stroke of genius over time.