Apple names John Ternus CEO as Tim Cook becomes executive chairman
21 Apr 2026, 01:03 PMTernus takes over at a moment when Apple is under increasing pressure to define its position in the AI race.
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Tim Cook will step down as chief executive officers of Apple later this year, transitioning into the role of executive chairman, the company said in a statement on Monday.
He will be succeeded by John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering and a 25-year company veteran, with the change set to take effect on September 1, 2026.
Ternus takes over at a moment when Apple is under increasing pressure to define its position in the artificial intelligence (AI) race, where rivals including new age startups such as OpenAI and Anthropic have moved faster.
Just like Cook, who was a long serving insider at Apple, when he took over the reins of the CEO from Steve Jobs in 2011, Ternus has been around at Apple for 25 years.
Ternus joined Apple’s product design team in 2001, rising to vice president of hardware engineering in 2013. He was elevated to the executive team in 2021 as senior vice president of hardware engineering.
Over the years, he has led hardware engineering across nearly every major Apple product category, playing a key role in bringing new lines like the iPad and AirPods to market, while also steering multiple generations of the iPhone, Mac and Apple Watch, the statement said.
"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," it added.
The statement also noted that 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. Besides, its yearly revenue has nearly quadrupled, from $108 billion in fiscal year 2011 to more than $416 billion in fiscal year 2025.
The statement also said that 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.
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