Tim Cook is stepping down as Apple’s CEO and becoming executive chairman of the company, effective September 1, the company announced on Monday. John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering, will succeed Cook as CEO.
There has been speculation about Cook’s departure in recent months. At a time when every other Substantial Tech company has committed significant resources to developing advanced artificial intelligence, Apple is widely seen as a laggard. Ternus’ ancient position will fall to Johny Srouji, who was promoted from senior vice president to chief equipment officer on Monday. Srouji played a key role in Apple’s development of custom computer chips.
Cook’s legacy at Apple will be tied to the company’s tremendous financial growth over the past two decades. When he took over as CEO in 2011, the company’s market capitalization was around $350 billion; it currently sits north of $4 trillion. As of January, more than 2.5 billion people worldwide used Apple devices, according to the company.
During Cook’s tenure, Apple launched both the Apple Watch and AirPods, essential pillars of the company’s accessories division, which generated nearly $36 billion in revenue in the last fiscal year. The services business, which keeps consumers attached to Apple hardware and now accounts for more than a quarter of the company’s total sales, has grown from about $3 billion quarterly at the end of 2011 to about $30 billion in the final three months of last year.
However, some projects developed under Cook, such as Apple’s self-driving car, have been less successful. Apple Vision Pro, the company’s delayed foray into virtual reality headsets, was widely considered too steep and failed to gain traction. While Cook expertly managed Apple’s production cycles during the global pandemic and quickly diversified the company’s supply chain when it faced pressure from tariffs, Cook’s legacy will likely be as an operations champion rather than a product innovator.
Cook’s dealings with China are also part of his operational legacy, as China has become not only a key manufacturing center but also an essential consumer market for Apple. As of last year, Apple held the No. 1 spot in terms of smartphone market share in the country, with approx it is estimated that 22 percent. However, in recent years, Apple has faced scrutiny over what some lawmakers say is the utilize of forced labor involving Uyghur Muslims by its contractors. Apparently Apple does too tried to lobby against some provisions of the 2020 bill that would prevent forced labor in China.
Cook, like many tech CEOs, has cozied up to President Donald Trump since his return to the White House – sometimes even standing somberly next to the president at public events. Cook personally donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration ceremonies in early 2025. He also appeared at Trump’s inauguration itself along with Elon Musk, Sundar Pichai, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg. Last August, in a strange show of allegiance, Cook gave Trump a custom Apple badge set in a 24-karat gold base. He also took part in a private screening of the film Melanie document at the White House, hours after a federal immigration agent shot and killed nurse Alex Pretti during a street protest.
In 2014, the typically private Cook announced that he was gay and op-ed in Bloomberg Businessweek. Cook wrote at the time that being gay gave him a deeper understanding of “what it means to be a minority and provided insight into the challenges that people from other minority groups face on a daily basis.” The experience taught him “to rise above adversity and bigotry,” Cook wrote. He also cited concern about child abuse as a motivation to talk about his own experiences.