There’s a changing of the guard at Apple (AAPL).
Apple said today long-time CEO Tim Cook will step down as CEO later this year and transition to executive chairman of the board. As many on the Street expected, he will be succeeded by John Ternus, currently Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering. Ternus will take the helm on Sept. 1.
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“Investors will view this as mixed, as this was a sudden move to executive chairman [and] there was clearly a push for change at the C-suite. These will be big shoes to fill, and the timing of Cook exiting stage left as CEO could make sense but also creates questions,” Wedbush tech analyst Dan Ives said in a note.
“Apple is making a major transition on its AI strategy, and longtime CEO and legendary Cook leaving now is a surprise. There was growing pressure on Apple to develop a successful AI strategy, and Cook must feel that the pieces are now in place heading into WWDC to hand over the reins at this time. Cook leaves a lasting legacy in Cupertino, and there will be a lot of pressure on Ternus to produce success out of the gates, especially on the AI front.”
Here are seven early to-dos for Ternus as Apple CEO. Notching early wins could go a long way in Ternus building Street cred and silencing any doubt he is the right person at the right time to lead the tech giant.
1. Make Apple AI relevant.
Ternus will get a head start on this from Cook, but he needs to build on it and be unafraid to ink other partnerships. Apple and Google (GOOG) recently entered a multi-year partnership to integrate a custom version of the Gemini AI model as the new foundation for Siri and Apple Intelligence. This collaboration is worth an estimated $1 billion annually.
2. Set Apple up for life after the iPhone.
OpenAI officially acquired Jony Ive’s AI hardware startup, io Products, Inc., in May 2025 for approximately $6.5 billion to form its internal devices division. Despite recent shifts in focus, OpenAI is still expected to release its first piece of hardware with an eye toward challenging the iPhone this year. Ternus has to use his extensive hardware knowledge to think about what life after the iPhone looks like — and it needs to be something more than the foldable device rumored to debut later this year.
3. Reset the size of the Apple workforce in the age of AI, like others in big tech.
Big tech players from Oracle (ORCL) to Amazon (AMZN) to Meta (META) are firing people en masse amid pushes to adopt AI workflows. As is customary with a new CEO, Ternus may want to use his new position to resize Apple’s workforce and reallocate those savings to growth investments or shareholder-friendly actions. Doing so would give Ternus an early win with shareholders and Wall Street, even though the headlines wouldn’t look good. Apple is estimated to have 80,000 workers in the US and more than 160,000 globally.
