Apple's cash reserves are not infinite. And any desperate attempt to "hold up" the price will be punished by the market. This is very different from usual $15B stock buyback, which you can explain but try doing it with $200B and you are seriously weakening the company.

The executives role is to increase share price and Company evaluation for shareholders.

If all you can do is sit on a pile of cash without any good ideas on how to turn that cash into larger profits, or you just burn it to buy stock back or give dividends, it is a way of saying “I have no vision for the future of this company, I don’t know what else we can do, we will not continue to grow aggressively, so might as well take the cash dear shareholder”

Not a great move in front of the board. Done marginally is fine, sends a “we made more that we can use” cocky statement. Doing it massively to keep stock afloat, means you are out.

> Excuse me for my nativity but can't they just buy back a trillion more stocks or something, keeping the stock price where it is no matter what?

Stock buybacks are net neutral wrt the company's value. They're just one of the ways to return money to stock holders. It's not a magical perpetuum mobile kind of thing.

> I don't think something can really hurt your income when you have that much money.

Of course many things can hurt your income no matter how much money you have. The only entities whose income can't be hurt are the ones who don't have any!