- Tim Cook to step down as CEO in September
- John Ternus will take on the role of CEO
- Cook will become executive chairman
The whispers were true. Apple’s long-time CEO Tim Cook will step down in September this year and Apple hardware head John Tenrus will become CEO.
Apple announced Monday that Cook would step down after 15 years as CEO, in a press release in which Cook said: “It has been the greatest privilege of my life to be the CEO of Apple and to be able to lead such an extraordinary company.”
Of Ternus, he said: “John Ternus has the mind of an engineer, the soul of an innovator and the heart to lead with integrity and honor. He is a visionary whose contributions to Apple over 25 years are already too numerous to count, and he is undoubtedly the right person to lead Apple into the future.
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Ternus, who has increasingly moved from the background to become a visible presence at product launches (like the recent MacBook Neo launch) and WWDC, said in the release: “I am deeply grateful for this opportunity to advance Apple’s mission. »
Although rumors have been circulating for a year or more about who would succeed Cook and, latterly, whether it would be Ternus, today’s announcement comes as a surprise. Just a few weeks ago, Cook gave his opinion, interview after interview, on Apple’s 50-year history, his time within the company and his potential future. It looked like he might be at the helm for a few more years at least.
Now, while Cook may speak at the upcoming WWDC in Cupertino, California, in September, it will be Ternus who will show off the anticipated iPhone 18, the rumored iPhone Fold and the hoped-for AR glasses, which will be called Apple Glass.
Last month, Cook told Good Morning America’s Michael Strahan that he “couldn’t imagine life without Apple,” which many interpreted to mean that Cook hoped to remain CEO for the foreseeable future. However, in retrospect, this comment fits his new reality. By becoming executive chairman when Ternus takes over as the new CEO in September, Cook steps away from the intense pressure of being CEO of one of the world’s most valuable and high-profile companies, while still being part of a company he clearly loves.
Cook era
Apple’s announcement means we can now begin to fully evaluate Cook’s tenure as CEO. A news anchor asked me to write it down. I gave Cook a “B+”, but in reality it might be an A-.
From a revenue and company value perspective, Cook has outperformed, transforming one of the fastest-growing tech companies from a $350 billion success story under Steve Jobs, who died in 2011, to a $4 trillion behemoth.
Cook’s legacy will surely be Apple’s expansion of its services business, which was once a relatively small part of the company but is now a fast-growing, multibillion-dollar revenue engine that could one day eclipse iPhone revenues. Cook can also be credited with shepherding the Apple Watch into existence and steering Apple towards a health and wellness orientation.
From a management perspective, Cook is nothing like the mercurial Jobs, and his openness about the need for Apple to embrace diversity and inclusion, as well as his revelation of his own sexual orientation, was a watershed moment for leaders of the Fortune 50 companies.
Where Cook stumbled was in the area of mind-blowing innovation. The Apple Vision Pro headset was its biggest success, but it didn’t prove to be a commercial success, although its influence can be seen in the highly anticipated upcoming “Apple Glass” AR glasses, which will still have Cook’s fingerprints all over them (although Cook would never have been one to go into the minute details of device construction like his predecessor).
Cook also failed to fight the AI beast for Apple. Even though the company launched Apple Intelligence, it is far behind Google, OpenAI and others in the pure AI race. Again, we expect this to change at WWDC 2026, when the company finally launches the revamped Siri, albeit one built on Google’s core models.
Ternus is well known as a maverick when it comes to hardware, and I’ve had conversations with him on and off since around 2015. He’s engaging, smart, and Apple at heart. Will he steer the company further toward greater hardware advancements, or will he learn from the resounding success of the MacBook Neo and seek to give Apple consumers exactly what they want?
I guess we’ll wait until September, and probably beyond, to find out.
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