Tim Cook To Step Down As Apple CEO, John Ternus Named Successor

Apple announced on Monday that CEO Tim Cook will resign in September and hand over leadership to longtime executive John Ternus.

Tim Cook, who is 65, will stay on as executive chairman of the board after stepping down.

The news ends years of speculation about who would succeed him at the head of the world’s most valuable company.

“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.

Tim Cook first joined Apple in 1998 and quickly rose through the company.

As chief operating officer, he streamlined its supply chain and operations.

He took over as CEO in 2011 when Steve Jobs stepped down for health reasons.

Under Cook’s leadership, Apple grew dramatically, launching new products and increasing its market value to around $4 trillion.

“Tim’s unprecedented and outstanding leadership has transformed Apple into the world’s best company.

“His integrity and values are infused into everything Apple does,” outgoing chairman of the board Arthur Levinson said in the statement.

Levinson, who currently holds the board chairmanship in a non-executive role, will now move into the role of lead independent director.

John Ternus has spent more than two decades at Apple. He started in the product design team in 2001 and later became senior vice president of hardware engineering.

He played a key part in developing many major products, including the iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Mac computers.

“I am profoundly grateful for this opportunity to carry Apple’s mission forward,” Ternus said in the statement.

“Having spent almost my entire career at Apple, I have been lucky to have worked under Steve Jobs and to have had Tim Cook as my mentor.”

This year marks Apple’s 50th anniversary. The company, which started in Steve Jobs’ garage in 1976, revolutionized personal computing, music, and mobile communication with hits like the Mac, iPhone, and iPad.

Now it faces fresh pressure to deliver major breakthroughs in artificial intelligence.

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