Apple Names John Ternus CEO as Tim Cook Steps Down After Building a $4 Trillion Empire

Tim Cook to Step Back After Expanding Apple’s Value More Than 11-Fold

Apple Changes CEOs for the First Time in 15 Years

Hardware Executive John Ternus to Take Over in September

Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive officer, is stepping back from day-to-day management after 15 years in the role. Apple said on April 20 that John Ternus, the company’s senior vice president of hardware engineering, will become CEO in September.

Cook, 65, joined Apple in 1998 and became CEO in 2011 after founder Steve Jobs died. A supply-chain specialist, he won credit for tightening inventory management and turning China into a key production base for the iPhone and MacBook, helping lay the foundation for Apple’s modern empire.

He also pushed Apple further into services with iCloud, Apple TV and Apple Music. Services accounted for about a quarter of Apple’s revenue last year. During Cook’s tenure, Apple’s market capitalization rose from $356.7 billion to $4.013 trillion, an increase of more than 11 times. He will remain chairman of the board.

Ternus, 50, is a hardware executive who led development of products including the iPhone 17 and iPhone Air. He is the youngest among Apple’s 10 senior vice presidents. More recently, he took on a bigger public role than Cook at launches for major products including the iPhone Air and MacBook Neo, serving as one of the company’s key faces. In a statement on Apple’s website, Ternus said he was “filled with optimism” about what Apple can achieve in the coming years.

How a ‘Factoryless’ Apple Optimized Its Supply Chain and Turned a Near-Bankrupt Company Into a Cash Machine

Focus on Efficiency Left Apple Behind in the AI Race, While China Dependence Remains a Risk

“The world has lost a visionary.”

That was former President Barack Obama’s response when Apple founder Steve Jobs died in October 2011. Fifteen years after Cook succeeded a leader often compared with John Lennon of the Beatles or former President John F. Kennedy, Apple has confounded predictions of decline. Its market capitalization has risen more than 11-fold, while the iPhone and MacBook have built moats that competitors have struggled to cross. Even so, few describe Cook as the kind of visionary Jobs was. The contrast captures Cook’s mixed legacy: an exceptional manager, but not an innovator in the same mold.

The Manager Who Completed Jobs’s Innovation

Cook is a specialist in manufacturing and supply-chain management. Apple’s production network, built around a company with no factories of its own, spans the globe. Streamlining that logistics and manufacturing system and maximizing efficiency has been the work of Cook’s career.

At IBM, his first employer, Cook spent 12 years learning the just-in-time production system aimed at minimizing inventory. He later moved to Compaq as vice president of materials management, where he developed a model that shifted inventory costs to outsourcing partners. Although he spent his career at hardware-focused companies, Cook became known as an “inventory hater” who treated Apple products more like perishables such as milk and fish than durable electronics.

That expertise helped bring him to Apple in 1998. The company had posted large losses in both 1996 and 1997 because of bloated inventories and was nearing bankruptcy. Jobs, who had returned as Apple’s CEO, hired Cook as senior vice president for worldwide operations. Soon after arriving, Cook outsourced most production and cut inventory from 30 days to six days within seven months. Apple returned to profit that same year.

That record helps explain why Jobs later chose Cook as his successor. During Cook’s 15 years as CEO, Apple’s market capitalization climbed from $356.7 billion in August 2011 to $4.013 trillion on April 21, 2026. His steady supply-chain management also stood out during the Covid-19 pandemic and periods of geopolitical tension. It helped Apple maintain its reputation as a cash-generating empire, and value investors including Warren Buffett praised the company under Cook. That is also why most experts agree Cook completed the commercial realization of innovations that were still unfinished under Jobs.

Criticism Over Frugal AI Spending Came From Inside and Outside Apple

That management style has also drawn criticism in the age of artificial intelligence. Apple, which led the smartphone revolution, has been faulted for staying too focused on stability and efficiency while investing too cautiously. The company is expected to spend about $14 billion on capital expenditures this fiscal year, far less than Microsoft and Meta, each of which spends more than $100 billion. Apple has long had a culture of building what it needs internally, but critics say that tendency became even stronger during Cook’s tenure.

The criticism has come from both inside and outside the company. Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of services, advocated more aggressive mergers and acquisitions, putting him at odds with Cook. Matt Murphy, a Silicon Valley venture investor, said, “Apple wants to build everything internally, but it is puzzling that it is unwilling to take risks.”

Apple’s heavy dependence on China is also viewed as a risk Cook leaves behind. He concentrated manufacturing in China to maximize efficiency and tolerated Chinese government censorship as Apple expanded there and turned the country into a key market. Now that strategy is becoming harder to sustain, particularly as tensions between the US and China intensify.

Kim In-yeop, Silicon Valley correspondent / Park Han-shin, reporter, Korea Economic Daily inside@hankyung.com