Tim Cook to step down as Apple CEO, John Ternus named successor

Apple has chosen John Ternus, its senior vice president of Hardware Engineering, to succeed Tim Cook as chief executive officer, marking a carefully managed handoff at the top of one of the world’s most valuable companies. Cook will become executive chairman of Apple’s board of directors on September 1, 2026, while Ternus will take over as CEO and join the board the same day.

The board approved the transition unanimously, and Apple described it as the result of a thoughtful, long-term succession planning process. Arthur Levinson, who has served as Apple’s non-executive chairman for the past 15 years, will become lead independent director on September 1, 2026. Cook said it has been the greatest privilege of his life to lead Apple. Ternus said he is humbled to step into the role and promised to lead with the values and vision associated with Apple.

The move closes the chapter that began on August 24, 2011, when Steve Jobs resigned and the board named Cook as CEO. In the years since, Apple’s market capitalization has climbed from about $350 billion to roughly $4.01 trillion in April 2026, a gain of more than $3.6 trillion that made the company a central force in global markets and in Silicon Valley’s hierarchy. Reuters reported that Apple shares fell less than 1% in late trading after the announcement, suggesting investors were watching the change closely but did not immediately punish the company for the succession.

Ternus’s elevation points to the next question facing Apple: whether the company can keep growing without the kind of transformational new product category that defined earlier eras of the industry. His background in hardware engineering signals continuity in Apple’s product-first identity, but it also puts fresh attention on how aggressively the company will push device innovation and how it will answer persistent questions about its artificial intelligence strategy. For investors and rivals alike, the transition is more than a leadership change. It is a test of whether Apple can continue to expand at scale as the founder-successor era in big tech gives way to a more mature, succession-conscious Silicon Valley.