{"id":50099,"date":"2025-11-18T19:55:15","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T00:55:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=50099"},"modified":"2026-03-30T13:50:51","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T17:50:51","slug":"apple-succession-planning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2025\/11\/18\/apple-succession-planning\/","title":{"rendered":"Apple Succession Planning"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2025\/11\/16\/are-we-nearing-the-end-of-apples-tim-cook-era\/\">Anthony Ha<\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.macrumors.com\/2025\/11\/15\/report-tim-cook-to-step-down-as-soon-as-next-year\/\">MacRumors<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/news.ycombinator.com\/item?id=45940681\">Hacker News<\/a>):<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2025\/11\/16\/are-we-nearing-the-end-of-apples-tim-cook-era\/\"><p>Apple is getting serious about succession planning, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/0d424625-f4f8-4646-9f6e-927c8cbe0e3e\">a new report in The Financial Times<\/a>.<\/p><p>The company&rsquo;s board and senior executives are reportedly preparing for the possibility that Tim Cook could step down as CEO as soon as early next year.<\/p><p>[&#8230;]<\/p><p>Apple&rsquo;s senior vice president of hardware engineering John Ternus is reportedly seen as the most likely candidate for the company&rsquo;s next CEO.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.macrumors.com\/2025\/11\/17\/tim-cook-might-not-fully-retire\/\">Joe Rossignol<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/www.macrumors.com\/2025\/11\/17\/tim-cook-might-not-fully-retire\/\"><p>[But] he might not fully retire. Instead, it is possible that he will become the next chairman of Apple&rsquo;s board of directors.<\/p><p>[&#8230;]<\/p><p>In this scenario, it is unclear if Cook would become chairman or executive chairman. In the former role, he would focus more on managing the board and corporate governance. In the latter role, Cook would remain more involved in Apple&rsquo;s day-to-day operations and decision-making, which could help to ease the transition to a new CEO.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/daringfireball.net\/linked\/2025\/11\/15\/ft-apple-tim-cook-succession\">John Gruber<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/daringfireball.net\/linked\/2025\/11\/15\/ft-apple-tim-cook-succession\">\n<p>I absolutely love the idea of Cook&rsquo;s successor being a product person like Ternus, and Ternus is young enough&#x2009;&mdash;&#x2009;50, the same age Cook was in 2011 when he took the reins from Steve Jobs&#x2009;&mdash;&#x2009;to hold the job for a long stretch.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>From what little I know, I have a generally favorable view of Ternus, but I think Apple really needs a leader who understands and cares about <a href=\"https:\/\/mastodon.social\/@troz\/115555876922060201\">software<\/a>. (Maybe Ternus does, but on paper he looks like a hardware guy.)<\/p>\n\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/daringfireball.net\/linked\/2025\/11\/15\/ft-apple-tim-cook-succession\">\n<p>I would also bet that Cook moves into the role of executive chairman, and will still play a significant, if not leading, role for the company when it comes to domestic and <a href=\"https:\/\/daringfireball.net\/2024\/01\/vestager_cook\">international<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/daringfireball.net\/linked\/2025\/05\/27\/cook-trump-middle-east\">politics<\/a>. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/politics\/elections\/tim-cook-ceo-trump-relationship-ad106f36?st=KRSbZa&amp;reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink\">Especially<\/a> with <a href=\"https:\/\/daringfireball.net\/linked\/2025\/01\/04\/consider-cook-as-a-tragic-figure\">regard<\/a> to <a href=\"https:\/\/daringfireball.net\/linked\/2025\/09\/10\/trump-hosts-dinner-humiliating-tech-ceos\">Trump<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>Previously:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2025\/09\/01\/the-tim-cook-era\/\">The Tim Cook Era<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2025\/07\/09\/jeff-williams-retiring-as-apples-coo\/\">Jeff Williams Retiring as Apple&rsquo;s COO<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2025\/03\/21\/apple-shifts-siri-from-giannandrea-to-rockwell\/\">Apple Shifts Siri From Giannandrea to Rockwell<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2024\/11\/12\/john-geleynse-retires-from-apple\/\">John Geleynse Retires From Apple<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2020\/09\/15\/apple-leadership-bubblegum-cards\/\">Apple Leadership Bubblegum Cards<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2020\/08\/04\/phil-schiller-steps-down-from-svp\/\">Phil Schiller Steps Down From SVP<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2019\/06\/28\/jony-ive-is-leaving-apple\/\">Jony Ive Is Leaving Apple<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2017\/01\/10\/chris-lattner-is-leaving-apple\/\">Chris Lattner Is Leaving Apple<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n<p id=\"apple-succession-planning-update-2025-12-10\">Update (<a href=\"#apple-succession-planning-update-2025-12-10\">2025-12-10<\/a>): <a href=\"https:\/\/www.macrumors.com\/2025\/12\/05\/will-john-ternus-be-next-apple-ceo\/\">Hartley Charlton<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/www.macrumors.com\/2025\/12\/05\/will-john-ternus-be-next-apple-ceo\/\">\n<p>There is uncertainty about Apple&rsquo;s head of hardware engineering John Ternus succeeding Tim Cook as CEO, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theinformation.com\/articles\/silicon-valley-buzzing-apple-ceo-succession\"><em>The Information<\/em><\/a> reports. Some former Apple executives apparently hope that a new &ldquo;dark-horse&rdquo; candidate will emerge.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>Some skeptics inside the company say that Ternus is too risk averse, leading to frustrations within his group. For example, some in Apple&rsquo;s hardware engineering department were disappointed that Ternus declined to fund more ambitious projects.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>I see it as <em>good<\/em> judgement that he wanted to focus on iOS and Mac instead of funding Vision Pro and the Apple Car.<\/p>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/daringfireball.net\/linked\/2025\/12\/05\/apple-succession-the-information\">John Gruber<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/daringfireball.net\/linked\/2025\/12\/05\/apple-succession-the-information\">\n<p>The parenthetical undersells the unlikelihood of Fadell returning to Apple, ever, in any role, let alone the borderline insanity of suggesting he&rsquo;d come back as Cook&rsquo;s successor.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>Previously:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2025\/12\/05\/newstead-replaces-adams-and-jackson\/\">Newstead Replaces Adams and Jackson<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2025\/12\/03\/alan-dye-leaving-apple-for-meta\/\">Alan Dye Leaving Apple for Meta<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2024\/02\/28\/apple-cancels-car-project\/\">Apple Cancels Car Project<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n<p id=\"apple-succession-planning-update-2026-01-08\">Update (<a href=\"#apple-succession-planning-update-2026-01-08\">2026-01-08<\/a>): <a href=\"https:\/\/www.macrumors.com\/2026\/01\/08\/john-ternus-profile\/\">Eric Slivka<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/www.macrumors.com\/2026\/01\/08\/john-ternus-profile\/\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.macrumors.com\/2025\/10\/06\/apple-leadership-shakeup-impending\/\">Several recent reports<\/a> have identified Apple&rsquo;s senior vice president of hardware engineering, John Ternus, as likely to be named the next Apple CEO, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/01\/08\/technology\/apple-ceo-tim-cook-john-ternus.html\"><em>The New York Times<\/em> has now shared a profile of Ternus<\/a> with some context on his expertise and how he is viewed within the company.<\/p>\n<p>According to sources who spoke to <em>The New York Times<\/em>, Apple began accelerating its planning for  Tim Cook&rsquo;s succession last year, with Cook having expressed a desire to reduce his workload.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p id=\"apple-succession-planning-update-2026-01-09\">Update (<a href=\"#apple-succession-planning-update-2026-01-09\">2026-01-09<\/a>): <a href=\"https:\/\/daringfireball.net\/linked\/2026\/01\/08\/nyt-ternus\">John Gruber<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/daringfireball.net\/linked\/2026\/01\/08\/nyt-ternus\">\n<p>Cook may well be preparing to retire as CEO. He is 65! But it doesn&rsquo;t ring true to me that he&rsquo;s telling &ldquo;senior leaders&rdquo; that he&rsquo;s tired. First, I&rsquo;ve heard otherwise from actual senior leaders at the company. Second, any senior leader he&rsquo;d tell that to, if true, wouldn&rsquo;t share it.<\/p>\n<p>It seems to me that aside from the utterly normal and plainly obvious speculation that, at age 65, he might be on the cusp of retiring as CEO, there&rsquo;s something going on where a narrative is being spread that Cook is in poor health.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p id=\"apple-succession-planning-update-2026-01-23\">Update (<a href=\"#apple-succession-planning-update-2026-01-23\">2026-01-23<\/a>): <a href=\"https:\/\/www.macrumors.com\/2026\/01\/22\/john-ternus-apple-design-lead\/\">Juli Clover<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/www.macrumors.com\/2026\/01\/22\/john-ternus-apple-design-lead\/\">\n<p>Apple&rsquo;s hardware chief John Ternus has been overseeing Apple design teams since late last year as Apple continues preparing him to take over as CEO, reports <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2026-01-22\/apple-hardware-chief-john-ternus-now-overseeing-design-tim-cook-ceo-succession\">Bloomberg<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/daringfireball.net\/linked\/2026\/01\/22\/ternus-design-apple\">John Gruber<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/daringfireball.net\/linked\/2026\/01\/22\/ternus-design-apple\">\n<p>Here&rsquo;s to hoping Ternus is as pissed as the rest of us are about MacOS 26 Tahoe.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p id=\"apple-succession-planning-update-2026-02-19\">Update (<a href=\"#apple-succession-planning-update-2026-02-19\">2026-02-19<\/a>): <a href=\"https:\/\/sixcolors.com\/offsite\/2026\/02\/even-eddy-cue-knows-apple-needs-to-change\/\">Jason Snell<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/sixcolors.com\/offsite\/2026\/02\/even-eddy-cue-knows-apple-needs-to-change\/\">\n<p>If Eddy Cue can come in and decide that something Apple&rsquo;s been working on for years doesn&rsquo;t meet the company&rsquo;s standards, that even a potentially revenue-generating new service is a bad idea, imagine what might happen with new executives all over the company.<\/p>\n<p>Apple has benefited greatly from an era of executive stability over the last decade or two. Now it potentially stands to benefit from ending that era and embracing change.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p id=\"apple-succession-planning-update-2026-03-18\">Update (<a href=\"#apple-succession-planning-update-2026-03-18\">2026-03-18<\/a>): <a href=\"https:\/\/www.macrumors.com\/2026\/03\/17\/tim-cook-responds-to-retirement-rumors\/\">Joe Rossignol<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/www.macrumors.com\/2026\/03\/17\/tim-cook-responds-to-retirement-rumors\/\">\n<p>In an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodmorningamerica.com\/culture\/story\/tim-cook-talks-apples-50th-anniversary-future-ai-131137939\">interview with <em>Good Morning America<\/em>&rsquo;s Michael Strahan<\/a> this week, Apple&rsquo;s CEO Tim Cook responded to rumors about his potential retirement.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/daringfireball.net\/2026\/03\/squashing\">John Gruber<\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/mastodon.social\/@daringfireball\/116247205176902972\">Mastodon<\/a>):<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/daringfireball.net\/2026\/03\/squashing\">\n<p>Cook correctly points out that he himself has never said anything (in public, at least) about being tired or wanting to &ldquo;step back a little bit&rdquo;, as Strahan claimed he had read. But Cook does not refute that he might soon step aside as CEO, nor does he say he intends to remain CEO for the foreseeable future. It&rsquo;s an incredibly deft non-answer that would remain true if Cook steps down as CEO in two weeks, on April 1 (Apple&rsquo;s anniversary), and would remain true if he&rsquo;s still CEO five years from now. (The &ldquo;can&rsquo;t imagine life without Apple&rdquo; comment would fit like a glove if, say, he steps aside as CEO but becomes executive chairman of the board.)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>It was so helpful for Cook to go on TV to tell us that he doesn&rsquo;t know what&rsquo;s going on with tariffs and to give a non-answer about his retirement.<\/p>\n\n<p id=\"apple-succession-planning-update-2026-03-30\">Update (<a href=\"#apple-succession-planning-update-2026-03-30\">2026-03-30<\/a>): <a href=\"https:\/\/mastodon.social\/@lapcatsoftware\/116279313313165609\">Jeff Johnson<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/mastodon.social\/@lapcatsoftware\/116279313313165609\">\n<p>From the Gurman article: &ldquo;Ternus was a driving force behind the Touch Bar&rdquo;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>Previously:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2026\/03\/27\/goodbye-mac-pro\/\">Goodbye, Mac Pro<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Anthony Ha (MacRumors, Hacker News): Apple is getting serious about succession planning, according to a new report in The Financial Times.The company&rsquo;s board and senior executives are reportedly preparing for the possibility that Tim Cook could step down as CEO as soon as early next year.[&#8230;]Apple&rsquo;s senior vice president of hardware engineering John Ternus is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"2025-11-19T00:55:18Z","apple_news_api_id":"584e4e7c-f468-4c83-87bc-a781f20e2a83","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2026-03-30T17:50:56Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACg==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AWE5OfPRoTIOHvKeB8g4qgw","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[38,101,77,1416,31,2877,30,60,1434],"class_list":["post-50099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-apple","tag-business","tag-design","tag-eddy-cue","tag-ios","tag-john-ternus","tag-mac","tag-timcook","tag-touch-bar"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50099"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50099\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51418,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50099\/revisions\/51418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}