Tim Cook dinner is stepping down because the CEO of Apple and transitioning to a task as the corporate’s government chairman, efficient September 1, the corporate announced on Monday. John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice chairman of {hardware} engineering, will change Cook as CEO.
Cook dinner’s departure had been speculated upon in latest months. In an period when each different Massive Tech firm has thrown important sources at growing superior AI, Apple is broadly perceived as a laggard. Ternus’ outdated job will fall to Johny Srouji, who was elevated to chief {hardware} officer from a senior vice chairman on Monday. Srouji has been instrumental to Apple’s improvement of customized laptop chips.
Cook dinner’s legacy at Apple shall be tied to the corporate’s great monetary development over the previous twenty years. When he took over as CEO in 2011, the corporate’s market capitalization was round $350 billion; it’s now north of $4 trillion. Greater than 2.5 billion folks world wide used an Apple machine as of January, in accordance with the corporate.
Throughout Cook dinner’s tenure Apple launched each the Apple Watch and AirPods, vital anchors for the corporate’s equipment unit, which generated practically $36 billion in income over the last fiscal yr. Its providers enterprise, which retains shoppers locked into Apple {hardware} and now accounts for over 1 / 4 of the corporate’s complete gross sales, grew from about $3 billion 1 / 4 on the finish of 2011 to about $30 billion within the ultimate three months of final yr.
However among the tasks developed underneath Cook dinner, equivalent to Apple’s self-driving automotive, had been much less profitable. Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional, the corporate’s delayed foray into digital actuality headsets, was broadly thought of to be too costly and failed to realize traction. Whereas Cook dinner expertly managed Apple’s manufacturing cycles through the international pandemic and shortly diversified the corporate’s provide chain when it encountered stress from tariffs, Cook dinner’s legacy is more likely to be that of an operations grasp relatively than a product innovator.
Cook dinner’s dealings with China are additionally part of his operational legacy, as China turned not solely a essential hub of producing but additionally an vital client marketplace for Apple. As of final yr, Apple held the highest spot in smartphone market share within the nation, with an estimated 22 percent. In recent times, although, Apple has confronted scrutiny over what some lawmakers allege is using pressured labor involving Uyghur Muslims by its contractors. Apple additionally reportedly tried to lobby against certain provisions in a 2020 bill that may have prevented pressured labor in China.
Cook dinner, like many tech CEOs, has cozied as much as President Donald Trump since Trump’s return to the White Home—typically even standing, grim-faced, beside the president at public occasions. Cook dinner personally donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration festivities in early 2025. He additionally appeared at Trump’s inauguration itself, alongside Elon Musk, Sundar Pichai, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg. In an odd show of fealty final August, Cook dinner introduced Trump with a customized Apple plaque that was nested in a pure gold base. He additionally attended a personal screening of the Melania documentary on the White Home, hours after a federal immigration agent shot and killed nurse Alex Pretti during a street protest.
In 2014, the usually non-public Cook dinner introduced that he’s homosexual in an op-ed in Bloomberg Businessweek. On the time, Cook dinner wrote that being homosexual gave him a deeper understanding of “what it means to be within the minority and supplied a window into the challenges that folks in different minority teams cope with each day.” His expertise had taught him to “rise above adversity and bigotry,” Cook dinner wrote. He additionally cited concern for kids being bullied as a motivation for him to talk out about his personal experiences.
