Apple CEO Tim Cook Is Stepping Down

Tim Cook is stepping down arsenic the CEO of Apple and transitioning to a relation arsenic the company’s enforcement chairman, effectual September 1, the institution announced connected Monday. John Ternus, Apple’s elder vice president of hardware engineering, volition regenerate Cook arsenic CEO.

Cook’s departure had been speculated upon successful caller months. In an epoch erstwhile each different Big Tech institution has thrown important resources astatine processing precocious AI, Apple is wide perceived arsenic a laggard. Ternus’ aged occupation volition autumn to Johny Srouji, who was elevated to main hardware serviceman from a elder vice president connected Monday. Srouji has been instrumental to Apple’s improvement of customized machine chips.

Cook’s bequest astatine Apple volition beryllium tied to the company’s tremendous fiscal maturation implicit the past 2 decades. When helium took implicit arsenic CEO successful 2011, the company’s marketplace capitalization was astir $350 billion; it is present northbound of $4 trillion. More than 2.5 cardinal radical astir the satellite utilized an Apple instrumentality arsenic of January, according to the company.

During Cook’s tenure Apple launched some the Apple Watch and AirPods, important anchors for the company’s accessories unit, which generated astir $36 cardinal successful gross during the past fiscal year. Its services business, which keeps consumers locked into Apple hardware and present accounts for implicit a 4th of the company’s full sales, grew from astir $3 cardinal a 4th astatine the extremity of 2011 to astir $30 cardinal successful the last 3 months of past year.

But immoderate of the projects developed nether Cook, specified arsenic Apple’s self-driving car, were little successful. Apple Vision Pro, the company’s delayed foray into virtual world headsets, was wide considered to beryllium excessively costly and failed to summation traction. While Cook expertly managed Apple’s accumulation cycles during the planetary pandemic and rapidly diversified the company’s proviso concatenation erstwhile it encountered unit from tariffs, Cook’s bequest is apt to beryllium that of an operations maestro alternatively than a merchandise innovator.

Cook’s dealings with China are besides a portion of his operational legacy, arsenic China became not lone a captious hub of manufacturing but besides an important user marketplace for Apple. As of past year, Apple held the apical spot successful smartphone marketplace stock successful the country, with an estimated 22 percent. In caller years, though, Apple has faced scrutiny implicit what immoderate lawmakers allege is the usage of forced labour involving Uyghur Muslims by its contractors. Apple besides reportedly tried to lobby against definite provisions successful a 2020 measure that would person prevented forced labour successful China.

Cook, similar galore tech CEOs, has cozied up to President Donald Trump since Trump’s instrumentality to the White House—sometimes adjacent standing, grim-faced, beside the president astatine nationalist events. Cook personally donated $1 cardinal to Trump’s inauguration festivities successful aboriginal 2025. He besides appeared astatine Trump’s inauguration itself, alongside Elon Musk, Sundar Pichai, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg. In an unusual show of fealty past August, Cook presented Trump with a customized Apple plaque that was nested successful a 24-karat golden base. He besides attended a backstage screening of the Melania documentary astatine the White House, hours aft a national migration cause changeable and killed caregiver Alex Pretti during a thoroughfare protest.

In 2014, the typically backstage Cook announced that helium is cheery successful an op-ed successful Bloomberg Businessweek. At the time, Cook wrote that being cheery gave him a deeper knowing of “what it means to beryllium successful the number and provided a model into the challenges that radical successful different number groups woody with each day.” His acquisition had taught him to “rise supra adversity and bigotry,” Cook wrote. He besides cited interest for children being bullied arsenic a information for him to talk retired astir his ain experiences.