Tim Cook to Step Down as Apple CEO, John Ternus to Take Over

Apple CEO Tim Cook is stepping down from the job that he inherited from the late Steve Jobs, ending a 15-year reign that saw the company’s market value soar by more than $3.6 trillion during an iPhone-fueled era of prosperity. 

Cook, 65, will turn the CEO duties over to Apple’s head of hardware engineering, John Ternus, on Sept. 1 while remaining involved with the Cupertino, California, company as executive chairman. That’s similar to the transitions made by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Netflix’s Reed Hastings after they ended their



highly successful tenures as CEO.

To allow Cook to assume his new job, Arthur Levinson will relinquish his role as Apple's non-executive chairman while remaining on its board of directors. “It has been the greatest privilege of my life to be the CEO of Apple and to have been trusted to lead such an extraordinary company,"

Cook said in a statement. “I love Apple with all of my being, and I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to work with a team of such ingenious, innovative, creative, and deeply caring people.”