Apple Names John Ternus As CEO, Ending Tim Cook’s 15-Year Run

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Apple has confirmed a leadership transition that has been in motion for some time.

Tim Cook will step down as chief executive on 1 September 2026 and become executive chairman. John Ternus, currently senior vice president of Hardware Engineering, will take over as CEO on the same date. The move was approved unanimously by Apple’s board and follows a long-term succession plan.

Cook will remain CEO through the summer, working alongside Ternus before shifting into his new role, where he will continue to engage with policymakers and support parts of the business.

Ternus will also join Apple’s board. Long-time chairman Arthur Levinson will move into the role of lead independent director.

Cook joined Apple in 1998 and became CEO in 2011 after Steve Jobs stepped down. His tenure reshaped the company, not through a single defining product, but through expansion and execution.

When Cook took over, Apple’s market value stood at roughly USD350 billion. It is now around USD4 trillion. Annual revenue has grown from USD108 billion in 2011 to more than USD416 billion in 2025.

Much of that growth came from tightening how Apple operates. Cook, a former chief operating officer, focused on supply chains, global scale and consistency. The company expanded into more than 200 countries, grew its retail footprint past 500 stores and built an installed base of over 2.5 billion active devices.

He also pushed Apple deeper into services, turning it into a business worth more than USD100 billion on its own. At the same time, Apple introduced products like the Apple Watch, AirPods and Vision Pro, while steadily iterating on the iPhone, Mac and iPad.

Less visible, but equally central, were shifts in how Apple builds its products. The move to Apple-designed silicon gave the company tighter control over performance and efficiency. Cook also made privacy and environmental targets part of Apple’s core positioning, with the company reducing its carbon footprint by more than 60 percent since 2015.

Ternus represents a different profile.

He joined Apple’s product design team in 2001 and moved up through hardware engineering, becoming a vice president in 2013 and joining the executive team in 2021. His work spans nearly every major product category, from early iPad development to multiple generations of iPhone, Mac and Apple Watch.

He has also led efforts around durability, materials and repairability, including wider use of recycled materials and new manufacturing approaches. More recently, his team has been behind updates across Apple’s product lines, including newer iPhone models and Mac hardware.

Cook called Ternus the right successor, pointing to his engineering instincts and long track record at the company. Ternus, who has worked under both Cook and Jobs, described the role as an opportunity to carry Apple’s mission forward.