Apple CEO Tim Cook Is Stepping Down

The Tim Cook chapter at Apple is coming to an finish.

Apple introduced on Monday that Cook dinner is stepping down as CEO, efficient September 1, 2026. Cook dinner will stay at Apple as govt chairman.

John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice chairman of {hardware} engineering, who was extensively seen as Cook dinner’s doubtless successor, might be taking the helm as chief govt. Apple additionally named govt Johny Srouji as chief {hardware} officer as a part of its transition plan.

Cook dinner has labored at Apple for almost three many years, first becoming a member of Apple in 1998 as senior vice chairman of worldwide operations. Apple cofounder Steve Jobs named him COO in 2005, and Cook dinner was instrumental in constructing out the iPhone firm’s huge provide chain whereas within the function. He turned Apple’s CEO in 2011, taking up for Jobs.

Cook dinner referred to as his tenure as CEO “the best privilege of my life” in Apple’s information launch.

“I like Apple with all of my being, and I’m so grateful to have had the chance to work with a crew of such ingenious, progressive, inventive, and deeply caring individuals who have been unwavering of their dedication to enriching the lives of our clients and creating the most effective services on this planet,” Cook dinner mentioned.

Apple reached new heights below Cook dinner

Whereas he confronted the unenviable process of taking up for a person many seen as a once-in-a-generation product visionary, Apple’s development below Cook dinner was plain.

Underneath his steerage, Apple turned the world’s first trillion-dollar publicly traded firm in 2018. At this time, it has a market cap of over $4 trillion.

And whereas Apple has but to launch a brand new product that has surpassed the iPhone’s high-water mark, Cook dinner oversaw the corporate’s launch of a number of merchandise that at the moment are family names, such because the Apple Watch and AirPods. He scaled up Apple’s enterprise in China, which has grow to be one of many firm’s prime markets.

Cook dinner was chargeable for rising Apple’s companies enterprise — which incorporates the App Retailer, iCloud, and Apple TV, amongst different digital companies — right into a $100 billion-plus juggernaut with the sort of excessive margins the corporate is legendary for.

In 2014, Cook dinner additionally turned the primary overtly homosexual CEO of a Fortune 500 firm, writing in a private essay that his sexuality was “among the many biggest items God has given me.”

“It is also given me the pores and skin of a rhinoceros, which turns out to be useful if you’re the CEO of Apple,” he wrote on the time.

He is additionally overseen some stumbles, such because the poorly acquired Apple Maps rollout in 2012 (which has since been vastly improved), the prohibitively costly Apple Vision Pro headset (a distinct segment product for now), and the delayed AI overhaul of its voice assistant, Siri.

The corporate additionally spent billions and a number of years creating a self-driving electrical automobile, in an inside initiative referred to as “Project Titan,” which Cook dinner later pulled the plug on.

Cook dinner’s stepping down as CEO comes as Apple works to catch as much as rivals within the AI race, which Apple was late to meaningfully put money into.

Ternus will take over as CEO within the fall, across the time of the iPhone 18 launch, which is anticipated to return bundled with the newly overhauled AI Siri.