Tim Cook will step down as Apple CEO on Sept. 1, handing the role to John Ternus, Apple said Monday, ending Cook’s tenure leading the iPhone maker. Cook, 65, will remain with the company as executive chairman, while the board leadership will also shift as Arthur Levinson steps back from the non-executive chairman role.
Apple said Ternus, 50, will take over Cook’s CEO duties starting Sept. 1. In announcing the succession, Apple positioned Ternus as the hardware engineering leader whose scope includes engineering behind the iPhone, iPad and Mac.
Cook inherited the CEO job after Steve Jobs’ death and will continue to serve in a senior role rather than fully departing the company. “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,” Cook said in a statement, adding that he “love[s] Apple with all of my being” and was “so grateful” for the chance to work with Apple’s team.
In his statement, Ternus said he was “profoundly grateful for this opportunity to carry Apple’s mission forward.” The transition is expected to keep Cook close to the company’s top decisions through the executive chairman role, while the board’s chair position changes with Levinson’s relinquishment of the non-executive chairman job.
Apple set the timeline for the change and pointed to how it will manage communications around the handoff. Cook and Ternus “may have more to say about the changing of the guard on April 30,” when Apple is scheduled to release financial results for the first three months of the year.
The leadership change lands at a time when Apple’s technology roadmap is under scrutiny, particularly in artificial intelligence. Apple has faced difficulties delivering AI features as promised nearly two years ago, after a rough start, and earlier this year it turned to Google for help making the iPhone virtual assistant Siri “into a more conversational and versatile helper.”
Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives said the transition came as “Cook created a major legacy at Apple but it was ultimately time to pass the torch to Ternus with the AI strategy now the focus.” Forrester Research analyst Dipanjan Chatterjee also weighed in, saying Cook “has kept Apple’s growth trajectory moving at a steady clip” but added that Apple had not overseen “a step-change innovation that would reset Apple’s competitive position for the next two decades,” as the iPhone did under Jobs.
Cook’s tenure saw Apple become one of the most valuable companies, AP reported, with Apple’s market value rising by more than $3.6 trillion during an era driven by the iPhone. The report said Apple became the first publicly traded company to be valued at $1 trillion, then $2 trillion and $3 trillion, before Nvidia reached the $4 trillion and $5 trillion milestones in the AI-driven chip cycle, while Apple’s valuation is currently cited at $4 trillion.
The AP report also tied some of Cook’s legacy to Apple’s supply chain and its role in manufacturing across countries. It said Cook, an Alabama native, previously worked at Compaq Computer and IBM and masterminded an international supply chain that tapped China’s manufacturing capacity for products including the Mac, iPods, iPhones and iPads, which account for most of Apple’s annual revenue.
As Apple approaches its April 30 earnings release and the Sept. 1 CEO transition, the company will be managing expectations on both product leadership and AI execution. With Cook remaining executive chairman, Apple is effectively pairing an institutional leadership continuity with a shift to Ternus, whose background is rooted in the hardware engineering side of the company.