Apple CEO Tim Cook holds an iPhone 17 pro and iPhone air during an event at the Steve Jobs Theater on Apple’s campus in Cupertino, California, USA on September 9, 2025.
Manuel Orbegoso | Reuters
apple On Monday, the company announced that John Ternus will replace CEO Tim Cook. Shortly after the news broke, tech executives began reacting to the shift.
Cook has been CEO of the iPhone maker for nearly 15 years, after the company’s late founder Steve Jobs resigned in 2011.
“Tim Cook is a legend. I’m very grateful for everything he’s done, and I’m also very grateful to Apple,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman wrote on X.
Apple and OpenAI first partnered in 2024 to integrate ChatGPT into Siri and Apple’s writing tools.
Oculus VR founder Palmer Lackey also posted on X, writing, “Rest in peace, Tim Apple,” referring to the famous White House incident with President Donald Trump in 2019.
Trump mistakenly called Cook “Tim Apple” during his first term. Cook downplayed the comments, replacing his last name with the Apple logo on his Twitter profile.
Lackey left Facebook in 2017 and founded defense contractor Anduril later that year.
Tarnas, currently senior vice president of hardware engineering, will become CEO on September 1, and Cook will become executive chairman.
