John Ternus

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A longtime Apple hardware engineer, John Ternus succeeded Tim Cook as CEO in 2026.

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John Ternus is an American technology executive who became chief executive officer of Apple Inc. (AAPL) in 2026, succeeding Tim Cook. A mechanical engineer by training, Ternus spent 25 years at Apple before becoming CEO. He oversaw hardware engineering for products including the iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, AirPods, and Apple Vision Pro. His appointment marked a shift from Cook’s operations-focused leadership to a CEO with roots in product development and engineering.

John Ternus received a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Pennsylvania in 1997. While at Penn, he competed on the university’s swimming team and was recognized as one of the program’s most accomplished athletes. For his senior engineering project, he developed a mechanical feeding arm for quadriplegics that could be controlled through head movements.

After graduation, Ternus worked as a mechanical engineer at Virtual Research Systems, a developer of virtual reality technology and head-mounted displays.

Ternus joined Apple’s product design team in 2001, several years after Steve Jobs had returned to the company. He initially worked on displays for Macintosh computers during a period when Apple was broadening its lineup with products such as the iPod.

Over the next two decades, Ternus rose steadily through Apple’s engineering ranks. In 2013, he became a vice president of hardware engineering, expanding his responsibilities beyond the Mac to include the iPad and AirPods. He assumed oversight of iPhone hardware engineering in 2020.

In 2021, Apple promoted Ternus to senior vice president of hardware engineering and named him to the company’s executive team. Reporting directly to Cook, he became responsible for hardware engineering for Apple’s entire product line.

Ternus also became one of Apple’s most visible executives, regularly appearing at product launch events and developer conferences. He presented new generations of Mac computers and iPads, helped introduce Apple’s transition to its own silicon chips from Intel (INTC) processors, and took a leading role in unveiling products such as Apple Vision Pro and newer iPhone models.

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John Ternus’s first product launch as Apple CEO featured the debut of the foldable iPhone Duo.

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Ternus became Apple CEO on September 1, 2026, succeeding Cook as part of a planned leadership transition that moved Cook into the role of executive chair. His appointment continued Apple’s practice of promoting leaders from within its own ranks. Ternus took over a company that had grown under Cook into one of the world’s most valuable businesses, with a market capitalization of about $4.6 trillion when Cook stepped down as CEO.

Ternus assumed leadership at a time of significant technological change. Artificial intelligence had become a major competitive focus in the technology industry, and Apple faced pressure to strengthen its AI capabilities after a slower start than some rivals.

Ternus’s engineering background also distinguished him from Cook, whose reputation was built on supply chain management and operations. Ternus had spent much of his Apple career in product development, eventually overseeing hardware engineering for all the company’s product lines.

Ternus has generally maintained a lower public profile than many technology industry chief executives. Colleagues and analysts have described him as a respected engineering leader with deep institutional knowledge of Apple and its culture.

In a 2024 commencement address at the University of Pennsylvania, Ternus reflected on feeling intimidated when he first joined Apple and encouraged graduates to remain open to learning from others, saying they should assume they were as smart as anyone else in the room but never assume they knew as much as others did.