Apple on Monday, April 20, announced that Tim Cook will step down in September, handing the chief executive job to company veteran John Ternus. The announcement answers long-simmering questions about who would succeed Cook, 65, and comes as Apple strives to show it is not being left behind in the age of artificial intelligence.
“It has been the greatest privilege of my life to be the CEO of Apple and to have been trusted to lead such an extraordinary company,” Cook said in a statement. “I love Apple with all of my being and I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to work with a team of such ingenious, innovative, creative, and deeply caring people.”
Cook will turn the CEO duties over to Ternus, Apple’s head of hardware engineering, on September 1 while remaining involved with the Cupertino, California, company as executive chairman. That’s similar to the transitions made by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Netflix’s Reed Hastings after they ended their highly successful tenures as CEO.
Ternus, 50, has been with Apple for the past quarter-century, including the past five years overseeing the engineering underlying the iPhone, iPad and Mac – a role that made him a prime candidate to succeed Cook.
“I am profoundly grateful for this opportunity to carry Apple’s mission forward,” Ternus said in a statement.
