Tim Cook to Step Down at Apple
- Apple announced CEO Tim Cook will step down, triggering a major leadership change at the company. - Apple's head of hardware engineering, John Ternus, is named as Cook's successor. - The change reshapes Cupertino leadership, with potential impacts on product strategy and investor sentiment (patch.com).
Apple said Tim Cook will leave the chief executive job on September 1, 2026, and hardware chief John Ternus will take over the same day. (apple.com) Cook will stay at Apple as executive chairman of the board, and the board said it approved the transition unanimously after what it called a long-term succession process. (apple.com) Ternus is Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering, a role that puts him over the teams building the iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, AirPods and Vision Pro. He joined Apple in 2001 and has been a vice president of hardware engineering since 2013. (apple.com) Cook has run Apple since August 2011, when he succeeded co-founder Steve Jobs. Before that, Apple says Cook was chief operating officer and oversaw the company’s global supply chain, sales and support operations. (apple.com) The handoff lands as Apple is still leaning on the iPhone and services business while trying to show investors it can keep pace in artificial intelligence. Apple reported fiscal first-quarter revenue of $143.8 billion on January 29, up 16 percent from a year earlier, with iPhone and services revenue at all-time highs. (apple.com) Apple has also faced pressure over delays to a more capable Siri tied to its Apple Intelligence push. Apple said in March 2025 that the features would take longer than expected and would roll out in 2026, and CNBC reported in February 2026 that fresh delay reports helped drive Apple’s worst stock drop since April 2025. (cnbc.com 1) (cnbc.com 2) That makes Ternus a different kind of Apple chief. Cook’s public profile was built around operations and supply chains, while Ternus comes from the product side and has spent years presenting new Macs, iPads and iPhones at Apple launch events. (apple.com 1) (apple.com 2) (theverge.com) Reuters was not available in the search results, but Apple’s own announcement fixes the date, role changes and board approval, and Apple’s leadership pages confirm Ternus’s current job and product scope. (apple.com) (apple.com)
