Since these are stock awards, the money really comes from old and new Apple shareholders, not the company itself.

When the stock award was granted, existing shareholders agreed to dilute their holdings by allowing the company to issue new shares to Cook. And when Cook sells this newly issued stock for cash, the money comes from new shareholders who want a slice of Apple (or existing shareholders buying more, thus paying cash for the shares they themselves gave to Cook).

Yeah?

If people have money to spend on Apple stock they clearly don’t need it to survive.

Who said anything about that? I wanted to clarify that the money Cook is receiving isn’t paid out of Apple’s cash reserves.

Although the question you raise is an interesting one in the sense that many buyers of Apple stock are indirectly depending on it to make a living after they’ve stopped working. For a blue chip giant like Apple, many of the buyers are index funds and pensions where the ultimate beneficiaries are retirees. They literally are buying Apple stock to survive, although through intermediaries.