John Ternus succeeds Tim Cook as Apple CEO to lead AI era

John Ternus took the top job at Apple on Sept. 1, beginning a new phase for the company after nearly 15 years under Tim Cook. He inherits a business valued at about $4.5 trillion and facing pressure to accelerate its investment in artificial intelligence while maintaining profitability and navigating trade tensions.

Ternus, 51, had served as Apple’s head of hardware engineering. He spent a quarter-century at the Cupertino company and worked on nearly all of its major recent product launches, including successive generations of the iPhone and iPad, the AirPods, the Apple Watch and the Vision Pro mixed-reality headset.

One of his main achievements in hardware was leading Apple’s transition from Intel processors to chips designed by Apple itself. The company says those chips provide greater performance and energy efficiency than the earlier processors.

The leadership change follows a period of major expansion under Cook. Apple’s market capitalization increased more than tenfold during his tenure, while annual revenue reached $416 billion in fiscal 2025. Cook expanded the services business, broadened the product range and strengthened a global supply chain that helped make Apple one of the world’s most profitable companies.

Apple shares fell 1.09% to $316.21 in early trading on the Monday before the handover, according to the report. Since the succession was announced on April 20, the stock had gained nearly 18%, and it was up about 37% from roughly $231 a year earlier. Ternus succeeds two of Apple’s most influential leaders, co-founder Steve Jobs and Cook, who made the smartphone central to an ecosystem of devices and services.