Tim Prepare dinner is stepping down because the CEO of Apple and transitioning to a job as the corporate’s government chairman, efficient September 1, the corporate introduced on Monday. John Ternus, Apple’s senior vp of {hardware} engineering, will exchange Prepare dinner as CEO.
Prepare dinner’s departure had been speculated upon in current months. In an period when each different Large Tech firm has thrown vital assets at growing superior AI, Apple is extensively perceived as a laggard. Ternus’ previous job will fall to Johny Srouji, who was elevated to chief {hardware} officer from a senior vp on Monday. Srouji has been instrumental to Apple’s growth of customized laptop chips.
Prepare dinner’s legacy at Apple shall be tied to the corporate’s super monetary progress over the previous twenty years. When he took over as CEO in 2011, the corporate’s market capitalization was round $350 billion; it’s now north of $4 trillion. Greater than 2.5 billion individuals around the globe used an Apple system as of January, in response to the corporate.
Throughout Prepare dinner’s tenure Apple launched each the Apple Watch and AirPods, essential anchors for the corporate’s equipment unit, which generated practically $36 billion in income over the last fiscal 12 months. Its companies enterprise, which retains customers locked into Apple {hardware} and now accounts for over 1 / 4 of the corporate’s complete gross sales, grew from about $3 billion 1 / 4 on the finish of 2011 to about $30 billion within the remaining three months of final 12 months.
However a number of the initiatives developed below Prepare dinner, reminiscent of Apple’s self-driving automobile, have been much less profitable. Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional, the corporate’s delayed foray into digital actuality headsets, was extensively thought of to be too costly and failed to achieve traction. Whereas Prepare dinner expertly managed Apple’s manufacturing cycles throughout the world pandemic and shortly diversified the corporate’s provide chain when it encountered stress from tariffs, Prepare dinner’s legacy is more likely to be that of an operations grasp fairly than a product innovator.
Prepare dinner’s dealings with China are additionally part of his operational legacy, as China grew to become not solely a essential hub of producing but in addition an essential shopper marketplace for Apple. As of final 12 months, Apple held the highest spot in smartphone market share within the nation, with an estimated 22 %. Lately, although, Apple has confronted scrutiny over what some lawmakers allege is the usage of compelled labor involving Uyghur Muslims by its contractors. Apple additionally reportedly tried to foyer in opposition to sure provisions in a 2020 invoice that will have prevented compelled labor in China.
Prepare dinner, like many tech CEOs, has cozied as much as President Donald Trump since Trump’s return to the White Home—typically even standing, grim-faced, beside the president at public occasions. Prepare dinner personally donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration festivities in early 2025. He additionally appeared at Trump’s inauguration itself, alongside Elon Musk, Sundar Pichai, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg. In an odd show of fealty final August, Prepare dinner introduced Trump with a customized Apple plaque that was nested in a pure gold base. He additionally attended a non-public screening of the Melania documentary on the White Home, hours after a federal immigration agent shot and killed nurse Alex Pretti throughout a avenue protest.
In 2014, the usually personal Prepare dinner introduced that he’s homosexual in an op-ed in Bloomberg Businessweek. On the time, Prepare dinner wrote that being homosexual gave him a deeper understanding of “what it means to be within the minority and supplied a window into the challenges that folks in different minority teams take care of daily.” His expertise had taught him to “rise above adversity and bigotry,” Prepare dinner wrote. He additionally cited concern for youngsters being bullied as a motivation for him to talk out about his personal experiences.
