Tim Cook is stepping down as the CEO of Apple and transitioning to a role as the company’s executive chairman, effective September 1, the company announced on Monday. John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering, will replace Cook as CEO.
Cook’s departure had been speculated upon in recent months. In an era when every other Big Tech company has thrown significant resources at developing advanced AI, Apple is widely perceived as a laggard. Ternus’ old job will fall to Johny Srouji, who was elevated to chief hardware officer from a senior vice president on Monday. Srouji has been instrumental to Apple’s development of custom computer chips.
Cook’s legacy at Apple will be tied to the company’s tremendous financial growth over the past two decades. When he took over as CEO in 2011, the company’s market capitalization was around $350 billion; it is now north of $4 trillion. More than 2.5 billion people around the world used an Apple device as of January, according to the company.
During Cook’s tenure Apple launched both the Apple Watch and AirPods, important anchors for the company’s accessories unit, which generated nearly $36 billion in revenue during the last fiscal year. Its services business, which keeps consumers locked into Apple hardware and now accounts for over a quarter of the company’s total sales, grew from about $3 billion a quarter at the end of 2011 to about $30 billion in the final three months of last year.
But some of the projects developed under Cook, such as Apple’s self-driving car, were less successful. Apple Vision Pro, the company’s delayed foray into virtual reality headsets, was widely considered to be too expensive and failed to gain traction. While Cook expertly managed Apple’s production cycles during the global pandemic and quickly diversified the company’s supply chain when it encountered pressure from tariffs, Cook’s legacy is likely to be that of an operations master rather than a product innovator.
Cook’s dealings with China are also a part of his operational legacy, as China became not only a critical hub of manufacturing but also an important consumer market for Apple. As of last year, Apple held the top spot in smartphone market share in the country, with an estimated 22 percent. In recent years, though, Apple has faced scrutiny over what some lawmakers allege is the use of forced labor involving Uyghur Muslims by its contractors. Apple also reportedly tried to lobby against certain provisions in a 2020 bill that would have prevented forced labor in China.
Cook, like many tech CEOs, has cozied up to President Donald Trump since Trump’s return to the White House—sometimes even standing, grim-faced, beside the president at public events. Cook personally donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration festivities in early 2025. He also appeared at Trump’s inauguration itself, alongside Elon Musk, Sundar Pichai, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg. In an odd display of fealty last August, Cook presented Trump with a custom Apple plaque that was nested in a 24-karat gold base. He also attended a private screening of the Melania documentary at the White House, hours after a federal immigration agent shot and killed nurse Alex Pretti during a street protest.
In 2014, the typically private Cook announced that he is gay in an op-ed in Bloomberg Businessweek. At the time, Cook wrote that being gay gave him a deeper understanding of “what it means to be in the minority and provided a window into the challenges that people in other minority groups deal with every day.” His experience had taught him to “rise above adversity and bigotry,” Cook wrote. He also cited concern for children being bullied as a motivation for him to speak out about his own experiences.
Cook joined Apple in 1998, hired directly by Steve Jobs to be the company’s head of global operations. The now-65-year-old maintained a close working relationship and friendship with Jobs, and when the latter stepped down in August 2011—and died two months later—Cook was his natural successor. Prior to Apple, Cook had worked in manufacturing, distribution, and product inventory at Compaq and IBM.
In a 2024 interview with WIRED’s Steven Levy, when asked about Apple’s CEO succession plans, Cook replied: “I’ll do it until the voice in my head says it’s time and then I’ll go and focus on what the next chapter looks like. My life has been wrapped up in this company since 1998 … it’s the overwhelming majority of my adult life, and so it’s tough to envision life without Apple.”
Ternus, 50, has worked for Apple since 2001 and became senior vice president of hardware engineering in 2021, reporting directly to Cook. When he takes over as CEO, he will also join Apple’s board of directors.
In a statement, Cook said: "Ternus has the mind of an engineer, the soul of an innovator, and the heart to lead with integrity and with honor.”
In an interview with WIRED in March, Ternus contended that the AI age hasn’t been a loss for the hardware maker. “Our products are the best place people will use the existing AI tools,” he said. Ternus played a role in the development of various desktop iMacs, MacBook laptops, iPhones, AirPods, and the computer chips powering them. Apple’s announcement on Monday credited Ternus for increasing the reliability and durability of Apple gadgets.
Ternus also said he had developed an “intuitive” but indescribable sense of what meets the “Apple quality bar” to the point that he could just look at something and know. Nearly a quarter-century at one company, with just a brief stop elsewhere before that, can do that. Ternus added that being able to pass on Apple’s values to newer employees has been an amazing experience. They’ll be his to shape now more than ever.
Steven Levy contributed reporting.
