Apple announced that Tim Cook will become executive chairman of Apple’s board of directors and John Ternus, senior vice president of Hardware Engineering, will become Apple’s next chief executive officer effective on September 1, 2026. The transition, which was approved unanimously by the Board of Directors, follows a thoughtful, long-term succession planning process.
Like so much with Apple these days, the details of this “thoughtful, long-term succession planning process” have been broken by the press, primarily Mark Gurman at Bloomberg, so when the actual event occurs it’s not a surprise. Well, dropping it on April 20, ten days before Apple’s next quarterly results, is a bit of a surprise—but really, just the timing. Not the details, all of which were widely anticipated.
