Monica Davey / EPA
15 years later, Tim Cook will no longer be CEO of Apple
Apple CEO Tim Cook will step down in early September and be replaced by John Ternus, the company’s senior executive and previously head of physical products.
Tim Cook leaves the role he inherited from the late Steve Jobsending a nearly 15-year reign that saw the company’s market value soar more than $3.6 trillion during an era of prosperity driven by the iPhone.
Having joined the Apple in 1998, Tim Cook was appointed CEO in August 2011, following the dismissal of the iconic Steve Jobs, who was seriously weakened by pancreatic cancer and would die a few weeks later.
Less charismatic than his predecessor, this Alabama engineer proved to be an exceptional business leader, guiding Apple into a rapid growth trajectory.
Between 2011 and 2025, the company based in Cupertino, California, almost quadrupled its revenue (+260%) and saw its market capitalization increase more than thirteen times, now exceeding 4 billion dollars, the third largest in the world.
Although critics have pointed out flaws at Apple under Cook, such as the absence of a product as innovative as the iPod or iPhone under Steve Jobs, the white-haired, bespectacled CEO has been instrumental in driving the development of services.
This sector, which includes the App Store, music (Apple Music) and video (Apple TV) streaming platforms, as well as cloud storage (iCloud), has become the company’s main growth engine.
For one, Tim Cook and his team missed the opportunity to invest in generative artificial intelligence (AI), heralded by the arrival of ChatGPT in November 2022.
Since then, Apple has been chasing its main competitors in the sector, without yet being able to fully integrate the new AI features into its main product, the iPhone, which is still awaiting a new version of the Siri assistant.
On the extended trading day, shares fell just under 1%.
John Tenus succeeds Cook
Cook, 65, will hand over CEO duties to Apple’s head of hardware engineering, John Tenuson September 1st.
Still, the outgoing CEO will remain linked to the Cupertino company as executive chairman of the board.
This transition is similar to those made by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Netflix’s Reed Hastings after their highly successful tenures as CEO ended.
