John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering, has been named the new CEO of Apple, the company announced.
In a letter posted on the company’s website, current CEO Tim Cook wrote that he will leave his role in September and become executive chairman. He described Ternus as “a brilliant engineer and thinker who has spent the past 25 years building the Apple products our users love so much, obsessed with every detail, focused on every possible way we can make something better, bolder, more beautiful, and more meaningful. He is the perfect person for the job.”
Ternus has been at Apple for 24 years, and led the hardware engineering division since 2013. He was instrumental in the switch to Apple chips and overseen hardware engineering on the company’s most popular products, including the iPhone, iPad, Macs, and AirPods, which has also made him an increasingly large presence at Apple’s keynotes. He’s also the youngest top executive at the company. As Fast Company noted in November:
Over the past five years, he has become a more visible presence at Apple events, unveiling the iPhone Air in early 2025 and showing off Apple’s first silicon chip, the M1, in 2000. His engineering background could assuage critics who have complained Apple has become a less revolutionary company under Cook’s leadership (despite the hundreds of products released during his tenure).
Ternus started his career in tech at Virtual Research Systems, working on VR headsets for four years before joining Apple in 2001, which let him work on several products that would prove to be iconic for the company. By 2013, he was overseeing Mac and iPad development and added the iPhone hardware to his list of supervised products in 2020.
As discussions over the company’s succession planning have swirled in recent months, Ternus name has been near the top of most lists of potential CEOs. In September, Fast Company wrote that Cook, who took over as CEO after Steve Jobs retirement in 2011, has faced criticism as a “bean counter” who has stifled some of the creative freedom that built the company. Ternus is seen as a potential return to the Jobs-era, where the company was run by a “product guy.” But Cook’s tenure is one of the most successful of a business leader in modern history. Under his leadership Apple’s grew in value from around $300 billion to the $4 trillion company it is today.
In his letter, Cook writes of the future of Apple: “This company will reach such incredible heights under his leadership, and you will feel his impact in every bit of delight and discovery that grows out of the products and services to come. I can’t wait for you to get to know him like I do.”