John Tarnas, Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering, at an internal event in New York on March 4, 2026.
Adam Gray | Bloomberg | Getty Images
apple announced on Monday that John Tarnas will succeed Tim Cook as CEO, with Cook becoming executive chairman on September 1.
Mr. Tarnas, senior vice president of hardware engineering, will join Apple’s board of directors when he becomes chief. Arthur Levinson, Apple’s non-executive chairman, will become the iPhone maker’s lead independent director at that point.
“Mr. Cook will continue in his role as CEO through the summer, working closely with Mr. Ternas to ensure a smooth transition,” Apple said in a press release. The company said in a filing that its board of directors made the appointment on Friday.
This is Apple’s first CEO change since Cook, now 65, succeeded Steve Jobs in 2011 shortly before Jobs’ death. Ternus will be Apple’s eighth CEO.
“Becoming CEO of Apple and being trusted to lead such an extraordinary company has been the greatest privilege of my life,” Cook said in a statement. “I love Apple with all my heart, and I’m so grateful for the opportunity to work with a team of original, innovative, creative and caring people who are unwaveringly dedicated to enriching the lives of our customers and creating the best products and services in the world.”
Apple also announced that Johny Srouji will become chief hardware officer, expanding his role to replace Ternus. Mr. Srouji, most recently the company’s senior vice president of hardware technology, will also be responsible for hardware engineering.
Under Mr. Cook’s watch, Apple’s market capitalization has increased more than 20 times, closing Monday at $4 trillion. Mr. Cook earned a total of $74.6 million in compensation last year, including a base salary of $3 million and more than millions of dollars in stock awards, according to recent regulatory filings. Forbes estimates his net worth at nearly $3 billion.
But with Cook’s departure, Apple faces a number of challenges, including an increasingly complex supply chain, geopolitical tensions, Trump administration tariffs and memory shortages as demand for AI chips soars.
Tarnas, 50, is Apple’s head of hardware and has worked at the company for about half his life, joining the company just four years after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in mechanical engineering. He has recently been profiled in the New York Times and Bloomberg, and is widely seen as the next candidate. His portfolio includes overseeing the hardware engineering teams behind the iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, AirPods, and Vision Pro.
Ternus joined Apple in 2001 after four years as a mechanical engineer at Virtual Research Systems. At Apple, he worked on the product design team and became vice president of hardware engineering in 2013.
Supply chain innovation
During his nearly 15-year tenure, Cook oversaw Apple’s entry into wearable technology, including the rollout of the Apple Watch, AirPods and the Vision Pro virtual reality headset, which has struggled to find market adoption since its 2024 launch.
Sales nearly quadrupled under the Cook administration, reaching more than $400 billion in the most recent fiscal year. Mr. Cook is best known in Silicon Valley as the operations guru who transformed Apple’s supply chain after joining the company in 1998 as executive vice president of worldwide sales and operations. When he arrived, Apple was on the verge of bankruptcy.
Mr. Cook became one of Mr. Jobs’ loyal lieutenants and was promoted to the role of operations director in 2005. Before joining Apple, Mr. Cook gained experience working in the technology industry for 12 years. IBMwhich helps the company manufacture computers. He also previously worked at PC maker Compaq as vice president of corporate resources. Mr. Cook graduated from Auburn University in 1982 and received his MBA from Duke University in 1988.
Apple CEO Tim Cook and New York Knicks basketball player Jalen Brunson attend the first day of in-store sales of Apple’s latest products on Fifth Avenue, New York, September 19, 2025.
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images
For Ternus, perhaps the most important aspect of his new job is pushing the company deeper into the field of artificial intelligence, where it lags behind many of its big-cap peers.
Despite the iPhone 17’s strong performance, Apple has faced criticism from investors and technologists for what they see as a lack of cutting-edge AI technology. The criticism intensified after Apple delayed upgrades to its Siri voice assistant last year. In December, Apple revamped its AI leadership, replacing the previous head with a Google veteran.
This year, the company released the latest version of Siri. google Gemini AI model.
Since product designer Jony Ive left Apple in 2019, the company has been operating without one of the key executives credited with making its flagship iPhone so appealing to the masses.
Ive later joined OpenAI, which announced in May 2025 that it would acquire the design guru startup in an all-stock deal worth approximately $6.4 billion.
In recent years, Mr. Cook has played a political role in promoting Apple’s interests, meeting with domestic and international leaders. Initially, he pushed for stronger internet privacy protections around the world. In 2016, it particularly clashed with the U.S. government over whether Apple had to help unlock an encrypted iPhone used by the San Bernardino, California, shooter. Cook said doing so would threaten user privacy, and the FBI eventually found another way to unlock the device.
Lately, much of Mr. Cook’s public lobbying has focused on President Donald Trump, who has threatened and reversed several tariffs on imports from China and other Asian countries, where Apple has big business.
In August, Mr. Cook visited the White House with Mr. Trump to promote Apple’s announcement that it would spend $600 billion in the United States over the next five years.
Mr. Trump, who once referred to Mr. Cook as “Tim Apple,” read aloud a list of the company’s efforts next to Mr. Cook at a meeting in August and said, “It’s great that you’re doing this.”
Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives told CNBC’s “Fast Money” that the timing of Cook’s departure is surprising.
“My feeling is he’ll probably stay another year,” Ives said. “You know, he even commented on it in terms of staying.”
Cook appeared on “Good Morning America” last month to quell mounting speculation about his future with the company, telling viewers that talk of his retirement was just a rumor.
Asked about reports that he was preparing to step down, Cook told ABC: “No, I never said that. I absolutely love what I do. 28 years ago, I joined Apple and I’ve loved every day since.”
—CNBC’s Jordan Novet contributed to this report.
Correction: An earlier version of this story had Ternas’ age incorrect.
WATCH: Apple executives Johnny Srouzi and John Ternus talk about the growing chip business.
