Apple announced that Tim Cook will become executive chairman of Apple’s board of directors and John Ternus, senior vice president of Hardware Engineering, will become Apple’s next chief executive officer effective on September 1, 2026. The transition, which was approved unanimously by the Board of Directors, follows a thoughtful, long-term succession planning process.
Cook will continue in his role as CEO through the summer as he works closely with Ternus on a smooth transition. As executive chairman, Cook will assist with certain aspects of the company, including engaging with policymakers around the world.
“It has been the greatest privilege of my life to be the CEO of Apple and to have been trusted to lead such an extraordinary company. I love Apple with all of my being, and I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to work with a team of such ingenious, innovative, creative, and deeply caring people who have been unwavering in their dedication to enriching the lives of our customers and creating the best products and services in the world,” said Cook in a statement. “John Ternus has the mind of an engineer, the soul of an innovator, and the heart to lead with integrity and with honor. He is a visionary whose contributions to Apple over 25 years are already too numerous to count, and he is without question the right person to lead Apple into the future. I could not be more confident in his abilities and his character, and I look forward to working closely with him on this transition and in my new role as executive chairman.”
“I am profoundly grateful for this opportunity to carry Apple’s mission forward,” said Ternus in a statement . “Having spent almost my entire career at Apple, I have been lucky to have worked under Steve Jobs and to have had Tim Cook as my mentor. It has been a privilege to help shape the products and experiences that have changed so much of how we interact with the world and with one another. I am filled with optimism about what we can achieve in the years to come, and I am so happy to know that the most talented people on earth are here at Apple, determined to be part of something bigger than any one of us. I am humbled to step into this role, and I promise to lead with the values and vision that have come to define this special place for half a century.”
Arthur Levinson, who has been Apple’s non-executive chairman for the past 15 years, will become its lead independent director on September 1, 2026. Ternus will join the board of directors, also effective September 1, 2026.
“Tim’s unprecedented and outstanding leadership has transformed Apple into the world’s best company. He’s introduced groundbreaking products and services time and again, and his integrity and values are infused into everything Apple does,” said Levinson in a statement. “On behalf of the entire board of directors, we are incredibly grateful for his countless contributions to Apple and the world, and we are thrilled he will now be executive chairman. We believe John is the best possible leader to succeed Tim and as he transitions to CEO we know his love of Apple, his leadership, deep technical knowledge, and relentless focus on creating great products will help lead Apple to an extraordinary future.”
“I want to thank Art for the incredible work he has done leading the board of directors for the past 15 years,” added Cook. “I have always found his advice to be invaluable and I appreciate his thoughtfulness and his unwavering dedication to the company. I am grateful he will serve as our lead independent director, and I look forward to working with him in my new role.”
Tim Cook joined Apple in 1998. He became CEO in 2011 and has overseen the introduction of numerous products and services, including new categories like Apple Watch, AirPods, and Apple Vision Pro, and services ranging from iCloud and Apple Pay to Apple TV and Apple Music. He was also instrumental in expanding existing product lines. Under Cook’s leadership Apple has grown from a market capitalization of approximately $350 billion to $4 trillion, representing a more than 1,000% increase, and yearly revenue has nearly quadrupled, from $108 billion in fiscal year 2011 to more than $416 billion in fiscal year 2025. The company has expanded its global footprint substantially, particularly in emerging markets; it is now in more than 200 countries and territories. Apple operates over 500 retail stores and has more than doubled the number of countries in which its customers can visit an Apple Store. During his tenure, Apple has grown by more than 100,000 team members and increased its active installed base to more than 2.5 billion devices.
Apple Services has been a major focus area of Cook’s, and during his tenure the category has grown to become a more than $100 billion business, the equivalent of a Fortune 40 company. Cook was also instrumental in creating the wearables category at Apple, which now includes the world’s most popular watch and headphones, and which has served as the foundation for Apple’s remarkable impact on the health and safety of its users. Under Cook’s leadership, Apple also transitioned to Apple-designed silicon, enabling the company to own more of its primary technology and deliver industry-leading gains in power efficiency and performance that directly benefit users across its products.
Cook has made Apple’s core values even more central to the company’s decision making and product development. Under his leadership, the company reduced its carbon footprint by more than 60 percent below 2015 levels during a period in which revenue nearly doubled. Cook, who has long advocated for privacy as a fundamental human right, has made privacy and security imperative at Apple, setting a standard for user protection that continues to set the company apart from the rest of the technology industry. He has also pushed for continued innovation in the accessibility space, believing that Apple products should be made for everyone. And he has made central to his leadership the notion that Apple should be a place where everyone can feel they belong and where everyone is treated with dignity and respect.
Ternus joined Apple’s product design team in 2001 and became a vice president of Hardware Engineering in 2013. He joined the executive team in 2021 as senior vice president of Hardware Engineering. Throughout his tenure at Apple, Ternus has overseen hardware engineering work on a variety of groundbreaking products across every category. He was instrumental in the introduction of multiple new product lines, including iPad and AirPods, as well as many generations of products across iPhone, Mac, and Apple Watch.
Ternus’s work on Mac has helped the category become more powerful and more popular globally than at any time in its 40-year history. That includes the recent introduction of MacBook Neo, an all-new laptop that makes the Mac experience even more accessible to more people around the world. This past fall, his team’s efforts were on full display with the introduction of a redefined iPhone lineup, including the incredibly powerful iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max, the radically thin and durable iPhone Air, and the iPhone 17, which has been an incredible upgrade for users. Under his leadership, his team also drove advancements in AirPods to make them the world’s best in-ear headphones, with unprecedented active noise cancellation, as well as the capability to become an all-in-one hearing health system that can serve as over-the-counter hearing aids.
Ternus led much of the company’s focus in areas like reliability and durability, introducing new techniques that have made Apple products remarkably resilient. He has also driven much of Apple’s innovation in materials and hardware design that have reduced the carbon footprint of its products, including the creation of a new, recycled aluminum compound that has been introduced across multiple product lines, the use of 3-D printed titanium in Apple Watch Ultra 3, and innovations in repairability that have increased the lifespans of several Apple products.
Prior to Apple, Ternus worked as a mechanical engineer at Virtual Research Systems. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania.
MacDailyNews Take: The end of an era… and the start of a new one!
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wow
Amen to that for now!
Next Up: Will Ternus have any vision of gut idea of what people will want that they can create and deliver?… Jobs was a genius – literally he was in IQ at the minimum – so let’s see if Ternus can be something between Cook and Jobs. If that’s what we get I’ll take it!
Cook was a great caretaker, but now it’s time for something to think truly big and massive.
Instead of making me too EV’s, they should have leapfrog’d and gone hydrogen. Instead of relying on carriers, they should have launched their own mesh satellite service like Elon.
Vision Pro overbuilt and didn’t launch at a price point even close to selling en mass – showing a major Cook’s out-of-touch moment…
Time for John to correct a lot of these blunders, and really, massive missed opportunities at the minimum, not least of which is a complete brick on AI.
I heard his first order will be to reintroduce Mac clones where Apple will licensed its operating system and ROMs to third-party manufacturers, allowing them to create Macintosh-compatible computers. Like the 1997 DayStar Digital Genesis MP line, which was the first multiprocessor Mac OS computer, featuring multiple PowerPC CPUs.
Dude your getting a dell
“John Ternus has the mind of an engineer, the soul of an innovator, and the heart to lead with integrity and with honor. ”
If an accurate statement, to whom wouldn’t he appeal? Seemingly, a “product guy”, innovator and hopefully-if needed–Tim’s presence can guide for excellent bean counting.
As much as Cook bugged me, I have great empathy for this change in his life. He’s leaving a big part of his life behind…likely the biggest/most significant and moving into the “last chapters.” He truly was an operations wizard and astute with EPS matters. My shares are up 12x+ during his tenure…not far from 100% gains/yr!
You are correct to say Cook was an operations wizard.
From the start back in 1998 he forced us to plan In “cums” (cumulative) and we used “CTB” (clear to build) vs. MRP. This forced clarity and strict control of the build plan while also allowing for dynamic flexibility. Truly unique and innovative in the operations aspect of high tech manufacturing.
I was skeptical that Ternus can run a $4 trillion company, which requires executing on a vast array of issues from people to parts spanning the globe, but now I am thinking this could be an improvement from the Cook era.
I thank Tim Cook for growing the company with extreme focus and energy, and I hope for the best for all of Apple, Inc!
Cook is an unmitigated moron. He overstayed by 12 years, easy.
May he forever rot in hell.
While I have nothing against Tim as a person, and I think he seems like an amazing person; it’s his business decisions that have bothered me. When Steve Jobs was alive, I LOVED his business decisions. He made a lot of aggressive decisions with excellent vision of needs for consumers. And ironically, he was not the nicest person to some people (reminds me of someone currently in high leadership.. HA); but his decisions were VERY effective for Apple, and consumers. When Tim took over, he generally did a great job executing Steve’s vision for Apple. But as time went on, and the Steve Jobs checklist was achieved, Tim lacked an aggressive vision for the future in some areas of the ecosystem; and that lack of vision started showing itself more and more each year. When Tim purchased “Beats” for $3 BILLION!!!!, it was a sign of weakness. While Beats had a nice product, with some star power behind it’ Steve Jobs (or Me) would have directed our R&D to create a better version of Beats, then hire star power to promote it, and our marketed them, out distributed them; and achieved that for 10% of the cost; saving 90% of the $3 billion. When Tim could not effectively manage the 20 different sku’s; where the company was efficiently stocked for the holiday quarter, and did not have sold out products during the holiday quarter; when we have enough metrics to know, to not fail at that. We know when the holiday seas is, for about 100 years. We have seen enough sales trends on market, to know the manufacturing pace to hit the metric. Apple could take 1% of the profitability, and hire 50,000 workers in 5 markets – America, Mexico, India, China and Vietnam. Doing this would help the effective footprint to all global markets efficiently to cover regions, with little shipping costs. It also would help balance manufacturing if/when there are labor disputes and global issues (wars, earthquakes, labor issues, taxing issues, etc..). Then we turn to product timelines. When Steve Jobs was alive, I witnessed how he mastered the product release timeline. 1- The build up, people lined up everywhere around the world. 2 – Steve personally showed the world the new product to a live audience. 3 – It was available, starting today (or within a week). 4 – The inventory was there to satisfy the high demand. 5 – The media was all over the event and product, essentially giving Apple FREE media, globally, for each new product Apple released. 6 – Marketing, TV ads, billboards hit aggressively. 7 – The financials showed on the balance sheet in one quarter, effectively proving the impact of the new product. A full cycle of product to market. When Tim took over, that entire algorithm was diluted in various financial quarters, and the impact was also diluted. I am surprised no-one around him pointed that out to him.
I tried to inform Apple, but my message was denied when I sent it in. Now let’s go to developers, when Steve was alive, Steve understood the marriage of developers with manufactures with the Apple OS. The excellent communication helped the entire ecosystem thrive with amazing growth across the board. When we look at that today, Tim’s lack of executing that has directly affected the pace of growth. It also has impacted the effectiveness of the ecosystem, where it seems like it’s going backwards in SOME software aspects. When Tim makes decisions to lock out developers with some technologies, then the end user suffers. Not everything Tim has done was bad, but his batting average needed improvement. It has A LOT of impact on WHY the Apple stock has been stalled. Apple SHOULD be over $400 by now, and should have had another split. But consistent volume influx has stalled that growth as well. Let’s look at products. Apple should not have ended the MacPro. The MacPro ecosystem is full of content creators. Music, Video and High End Graphic users, that wan PCI slots for daughterboard cards to run their systems. (I am one of those users, that has two MacPros for those things, with PCI slot needs). The iPhone should be offered in a smaller size, for those who do not want a large phone. The Apple Vision Pro came in at a too-high price point, and that product was a flop. The AppleTV has not been updated in too long, and is WAY late for a refresh. Let’s go to software. The OS has taxed the chip sets, on older macs with memory leaks, and slowed any mac older than a year, down. The AppleTV software is getting worse and worse with every update. To have to dig for your assets, is stupid. Consumers should not have to dig thru numerous pages, to get to content; it should be on page one. iTunes has become bloated, with a confusing navigation/search aspect for what you want to hear. Is it streaming on. Apple music? Is it in your library? Are you buying a song? Are you just streaming it? Search re-directs you to who knows where. A mess. And speaking of Apple TV and iTunes, a HUGE issue Tim has allowed, is the mismanagement of copyright content people have purchased from Apple. A purchase of content is a closed transaction. The distributors have been paid in in the transaction (Apple and the entity owning the copyright Sr, and then the artist, or whoever owns the copyright PA). The PURCHASE is a closed, final transaction. BUT, Apple has been quietly taking some of those purchase assets back from people, without their knowledge, and then does not refund the purchase. This defies copyright law. And Tim has allowed that to happen. It is just a matter of time until a class action lawsuit comes to light on that action. So those are just SOME of my issues with Apple. I have studied numerous metrics on Apple for over 25 years. I understand their ecosystem better than most. I think like Steve Jobs. I own, and operate 15 vertically integrated companies; and I understand effective utilization of how that operates. I always understood Steve’s vision, even before he said his vision, based on his prior actions to announcements. Apple is a monster corporation because of Steve’s aggressive approach. His ability to see vertical utilization on ecosystems, that can connect to a nucleus within Apple. I really hope the new CEO understands how Apple has to utilized. Build talent around the company, and effectively progress with vision. Apple has a lot of life left in it, it just needs someone to bring it to life. I could easily fix that companies directives. Hopefully the next CEO achieves that, and stays focused. One thing Tim did great is, The MacBook Neo is Tim’s best achievement he has brought to market. So, I am glad to see Tim head into retirement. Thanks for taking care of Apple, but the time has come to kick Apple into high gear.
Richard Hofherr
How about an iPhone max that forgets about thin. I want thick with a two day battery
A build that does not require a case. Get around the battery air travel restriction if that’s a thing. Clip on spare battery. Make it droppable. Build in bumper corners.
Nobody cares about thin if they just put a case on it. Sure. Make a small phone too. But then a huge phone. I’d carry huge. Need it. Bad eyes. Like many. I suppose the fold is coming. Pretty obvious.
I’d settle for an update for the iPhone mini. My hands still haven’t grown any larger.