Apple CEO Tim Cook to Step Down in August 2026; John Ternus to Succeed as Market Cap Exceeded Five Trillion

Apple CEO Tim Cook will officially step down at the end of August 2026, with Senior Vice President of Hardware Engineering John Ternus succeeding him as chief executive. Cook took over as Apple CEO on August 24, 2011. As of August 1, 2025, his tenure reached 5,091 days, surpassing Steve Jobs’ 5,090 days and making him the longest-serving CEO in the company’s history.

In April 2026, Apple announced that Cook would become executive chairman of the board and that John Ternus would assume the CEO role on September 1, a succession plan approved unanimously by the board. Over the past year, Apple’s executive team has seen changes: Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams retired at the end of 2025, and Lisa Jackson, head of environment and policy, subsequently departed. Meanwhile, John Ternus’s public profile has risen, including presenting products such as the iPhone Air at launch events.

During Cook’s tenure as CEO, Apple’s market capitalization once exceeded five trillion dollars, quarterly revenue surpassed one hundred billion dollars, and he drove a strategic shift to in-house chips. Apple Watch and AirPods became multi-billion-dollar categories. Values of privacy protection and sustainable development were embedded into product logic and corporate culture, leaving a deep imprint on Apple’s evolution.