By MacDailyNews staff
Today, June 20, 2025, Apple’s stock price sits lower than it did in December 2023, a troubling sign for a company once synonymous with innovation and market dominance. This decline reflects deeper issues under CEO Tim Cook’s tenure, raising serious questions about his ability to steer Apple forward. With the stock struggling and the company facing mounting challenges, the case for a new CEO has never been stronger.
Apple, once the world’s most valuable company, has fallen well behind the world’s most valuable company Microsoft ($3.57 trillion) and Nvidia ($3.48 trillion).
Cook’s ascent to the top role in 2011 came with a reputation as an “operations genius,” credited with streamlining Apple’s supply chain and boosting profitability while also, unfortunately, shackling the company’s operations to autocratic, CCP-controlled China, handicapping its future.
See also: How Tim Cook’s Apple may have undermined America’s lead in technological innovation and even its national security – June 17, 2025
Under his watch, Apple’s market cap soared to over $3 trillion, a testament to the foundation laid by Steve Jobs, whose visionary product roadmap —culminating in the iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch — propelled the company to new heights. Critics argue Cook has failed to replicate that innovation, relying instead on incremental updates and financial engineering, such as aggressive share buybacks, to prop up the stock price.
The current stock performance underscores this stagnation. Since December 2024, when Apple’s valuation peaked amid holiday sales optimism, the share price has eroded, losing billions in market value. Cook’s attempts to diversify manufacturing away from Chinese Communist Party-controlled China to India and Vietnam have been insufficient and late, leaving Apple vulnerable. His diplomatic efforts with political leaders, including a reported personal $1 million donation to Trump’s 2025 inauguration, have failed to secure meaningful concessions, exposing a lack of strategic foresight.
Speaking of millions of dollars, Cook infamously, in a 2017 hissy fit over fake news, gave $2 million of Apple’s — not his personal — money to the ADL and SPLC, which has been called a “con” for “bilking gullible liberals”*. The company also matched two-for-one employees’ donations to the SPLC through September 30th of that year and even had Apple’s iTunes Store offer visitors a way to donate to the SPLC.
In a typically sanctimonious letter to Apple employees at the time, Cook wrongly claimed that President Trump made “a moral equivalence between white supremacists and Nazis,’ a claim that anyone who watched the actual video of the event – as Tim Cook should have done before wasting Apple shareholders’ money – can see is ludicrous. Even the left-leaning Snopes has since rated as “FALSE.”
Cook should long ago have personally reimbursed Apple Inc. the $2+ million that he stupidly and embarrassingly gave to the ADL and SPLC in a 2017 knee-jerk hissy fit over fake news, with interest, and issue public apologies to both Apple shareholders and President Trump.
His failure to critically assess the situation before acting, not to mention never apologizing or making restitution. not only highlights a lack of due diligence but also erodes trust in his ability to lead Apple responsibly, especially when the company’s stock price struggles below its December 2023 levels.
The primary focus of a public company CEO is to maximize shareholder returns. Period. Not to insert himself awkwardly in TV show promos. Not to walk the red carpet at movie premieres, not to “save the planet” by planting mangroves or glom onto whatever fad strikes his fancy, abusing Apple’s brand and wasting shareholders’ dollars en masse along the way. (Cook has by now extracted some $2.5 billion from Apple; he should always have been using his own name and his own money for his own personal causes; not Apple’s brand and AAPl shareholder’s money.)
Again, the primary focus of a public company CEO is to maximize shareholder returns. Yet, Apple’s stock price right now is lower than it was in December 2023. So, to repurpose a phrase from Cook himself, “Why are you still here?”
Apple’s high-profile missteps under Cook like the botched, delayed Apple Intelligence rollout, the now-canceled “Project Titan” debacle which reportedly cost in excess of $10 billion, the decade-and-a-half neglect of Siri, and the underwhelming Vision Pro highlight a disconnect from consumer needs. Clearly, Cook lacks the visionary spark Jobs delivered routinely. Apple’s output under Cook is iterative and innovation-lacking, at best.
What’s wrong with Apple is that Tim Cook should have bowed out 3-5 years after providing continuity for the company as a caretaker CEO after Steve Jobs’ untimely death, not hung on, endlessly pumping out annual iterations of Steve Jobs’ innovations… burning tens of billions on failed projects (Scrapped Apple Car ‘a massive disappointment that will alter the course of the company’s history, perhaps for decades to come’ – Mark Gurman, March 11, 2024) and releasing a half-baked DevKit as a consumer product in order to cover for his glaring lack of vision (The Apple Vision Pro is ‘expensive, impractical, and clearly nowhere near ready for the mass market’ – Benedict Evans, March 22, 2024). – MacDailyNews, April 11, 2025
Apple needs a visionary leader who can navigate geopolitical risks, reinvigorate product development, and restore investor trust. Apple needs a charismatic leader who can deliver live on-stage presentations that capture the imagination and excite customers. Cook’s operational expertise is no longer enough and hasn’t been enough for many years; the company requires a charismatic visionary to reclaim its edge. As Apple stock languishes below its 2023 peak, the evidence is clear: it’s time for a new CEO to chart Apple’s next chapter.
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Whatever – you can’t blame the stock price on Tim – All I can say is I don’t know of any other company that is run as good as Apple is – You guys just love to attack Apple.. I think they are in good shape for a huge gain once this idiot is out of office and we have government that doesn’t just lie all the time.
The stock price failing/stagnating is precisely why many CEOs get canned ( if they’re not protected as a certain DEI minority, that is). It’s literally Cook’s #1 responsibility to maximize shareholder returns.
It’s “as well as.”
MDN is attacking Tim Cook, not Apple.
Yes, Biden was not an “idiot” and always told the truth all the time. 🤣🤣🤣
Apple today is not the Apple of Steve Jobs, and is an extraordinarily complex behemoth, virtually unprecedented in human history.
there’s a unmistakable value in having someone like Tim Cook at the helm, but he needs a “creative partner” who can be the visionary-with-power.
Stock price declined despite tens of billions of stock buy backs. What a waste.
MAGA is not a good look and is putting myself and others off the site …
There’s no “MAGA” is this article.
Now, why is Making America Great Again “not a good look?” Are you posting from Iran?
Beggars criticizing the CEO of the most valuable and best run company in the world.
I’ll bet you any amount that “Timo” blocks ads, but doesn’t contribute even $5/mo. to MDN.
Excuse MDN for asking for support for their work. It’s unheard of in Timo’s circles (his mom’s basement).
The most valuable companies in the world are Microsoft , followed by Nvidia, because they didn’t blindly miss the AI revolution because they were wasting their time on AR boongoggles.
Tim Cook became CEO of Apple in August, 2011. At the time, Apple’s share price was around $14.00. Today the share price is approximately $200. Most shareholders would be very happy with that ROI.
I think MDN needs to “Think Different”
A better Apple CEO would have it worth $5 trillion by now, well above Microsoft and the rest, not BEHIND them.
Tim Cook only looks good to those who lack the ability to imagine a real CEO with his eye on the ball, who’s not enslaved to DEI failure, who’s not a global warming scam sucker, who has even a pinch of charisma and vision.
enough mamby-pambying.
they should suspend dividends and buybacks for a year and invest $300b+ in AI.
Really? Ai has been proven as stupid. Just a glorified database with tools to summarize. Waste of money and time. Makes people stupid.
what’s groundbreaking and interesting from Apple? nothing. What is the new thing that is being talked about? nothing.Where are these new apps and programs that Apple has been working on? no where. There is no update for Final Cut, no New media apps, iTunes sucks. iWork? nada. They abandon intel. They have no new Device, the igoogles suck. They should have worked on a Games platform, but they ignore it. What the hell do all those people do at Apple Headquarters? Change a few lines of code here and there and call it “features”. Pitiful. why is macos looking more and more like Linux?
Cook is responsible for the leadership failures that prevented promised features from being delivered. What changes will they make? They’ll ensure thorough testing before advertising. What were they doing before? It’s suspicious.
Apple Vision Pro should have more features. Development stalled because leadership can’t deliver like before. When was the last time we were truly impressed?
Well said
dead man has nothing to add as usual
And yet more than you ever will or are capable of. DESPAIR YOU LEFTY PIECE OF S*** DESPAIR.
You leftist nazi dipshits lost because you cant stop your drag show child mutilation cult full of degenerates and are fearful people know exactly what you are.
They do.
DESPAIR MOTHERF*****S DESPAIR.
Look I don’t give a rat’s posteria about DEI and I don’t care about a person’s sexuality. I just want to be a proud Apple user again.
What are we talking about at the moment, the change of OS identifiers…WTH! Steve Jobs was far from perfect but he was seriously creative and I can’t say the same about Tim Cook and for the record he came from Compaq a seriously bland company.
Maybe he needs to be replaced by someone from Pepsi (sarcasm and a bit of history).
Ah, so now there is a Summer Festivus! The airing of grievances…