I think that means there is still profit, just that profits are not payed out to investors. Hence they have to be re-invested or kept as savings.

Salary leaves a bit of a loophole, not sure how that is regulated.

Unlike many private universities, rural electric cooperatives are controlled democratically by member-owners. In this case, it was a nested structure: the members were a dozen of local distribution cooperatives. Those distribution cooperatives have households for their member-owners. So, the power to regulate executive salary by households was there.