Today Tim Cook announced that he will be stepping down from his role as CEO with John Ternus, senior vice president of Hardware Engineering, becoming Apple’s next chief executive officer effective on September 1, 2026. The move has been the topic of speculation for over a year now, with many knowing that Ternus would succeed Cook. Other speculation had wondered if Cook could take on the role of Board chairman as the current chairman Arthur Levinson, with Levinson becoming the board's lead independent director.
Tim Cook has served as CEO since 2011, taking the reins from Steve Jobs shortly before his passing. He celebrated his 65th birthday in November but has not appeared to be slowing down. Cook has overseen Apple's tremendous growth in market cap all while having to live us to the standard set by Jobs. While Jobs famously told Cook not to ask what Steve would do but what was right, there was always a great deal of pressure to innovate and release new revolutionary product categories. He turned to the team, the skilled folks at Apple who were best suited to innovate and while the iPhone has seen incremental changes since 2011—FaceID, the notch and now the Dynamic Island—new products have come from the Apple Watch, AirPods and Vision Pro.
Cook did what he did best, focusing on improving the supply chain in order to support the iPhone and new products. He also made significant in roads into China which grew Apple's market substantially, though this and Apple's reliance on manufacturing in China has not been the easiest to maintain while various world leaders have pushed for Apple to onshore manufacturing in the US and other countries. Cook's role as Chairman will hopefully see him weather the latest storm battering the US and the world. Rightly or wrongly, Cook has been able to show he is a capable political operator as he's managed to spare Apple from the worst of the tariffs.
Ternus will be able to chart his own path, though it will be interesting to see how his tenure will unfold with Cook still in the building. Coming from Hardware, Ternus will have a different perspective—he may not be another Cook and he won't be another Jobs, but Apple's hardware, especially the Macs, have never been better. For one, the MacBook Pro keyboards work. (We'll eagerly give Ternus a list of other items needing his attention including reversing the decision to end For All Mankind with season 6, and the need to finally redesign the Magic Mouse so it can be charged while in use).
More over, Ternus started at Apple in 2001 working on the product design team—the team of engineers who worked with the Industrial Design Group to make the designers' products into reality.
Community Letter from TimTo the Apple community:
For the past 15 years I’ve started just about every morning the same way. I open my email and I read notes I received the day before from Apple’s users all over the world.
You share little pieces of your lives with me and tell me things you want me to know about how Apple has touched you. About the moment your mom was saved by her Apple Watch. About the perfect selfie you captured at the summit of a mountain that seemed impossible to climb. You thank me for the ways Mac has changed what you can do at work and sometimes give me a hard time because something you care about isn’t working like it should.
In every one of those emails I feel the beating heart of our shared humanity. I feel a sense of deepening obligation to work harder and push further. But most of all, I feel a gratitude that I cannot put into words, that I somehow got to be the person on the other end of those emails, the leader of a company that ignites imaginations and enriches lives in such profound ways it defies description. What an honor and a privilege it has been.
Today we announced that I’m taking the next step in my journey at Apple. Over the coming months I will be transitioning into a new role, leaving the CEO job behind in September and becoming Apple’s executive chairman. A new person will be stepping into what I know in my heart is the best job in the world. That leader is John Ternus, a brilliant engineer and thinker who has spent the past 25 years building the Apple products our users love so much, obsessed with every detail, focused on every possible way we can make something better, bolder, more beautiful, and more meaningful. He is the perfect person for the job.
John cares so much about who we are at Apple, what we do at Apple, who we reach at Apple, and he has the heart and character to lead with extraordinary integrity. I am so proud to call him Apple’s next CEO. This company will reach such incredible heights under his leadership, and you will feel his impact in every bit of delight and discovery that grows out of the products and services to come. I can’t wait for you to get to know him like I do.
This is not goodbye. But at this moment of transition, I wanted to take the opportunity to say thank you. Not on behalf of the company, this time, though there is a wellspring of gratitude for you that overflows inside our walls. But simply on behalf of me. Tim. A person who grew up in a rural place in a different time and, for these magical moments, got to be the CEO of the greatest company in the world. Thank you for the confidence and kindness you’ve shown me. Thank you for saying hi to me on the street and in our stores. Thank you for cheering alongside me when we unveiled a new product or service. Thank you, most of all, for believing in me to lead the company that has always put you at the center of our work. Every day we get up and think about what we can do to make your life a little bit better. And every day, you’ve made mine the best I could have asked for.
Thank you.