John Ternus is Apple’s CEO. Tim Cook is still in the building as Executive Chair.

The CEO seat changed on September 1. Cook is still in the building — as Executive Chair.

Apple’s leadership page, checked for this desk on September 2, lists John Ternus as CEO. Tim Cook is Executive Chair. Arthur Levinson is Lead Independent Director. Ternus is also on the board. Johny Srouji is listed as Chief Hardware Officer. The rest of the familiar bench is still there: Eddy Cue (Services and Health), Craig Federighi (Software Engineering), Greg Joswiak (Worldwide Marketing), Sabih Khan (COO), Jennifer Newstead (General Counsel and Government Affairs), Deirdre O’Brien (Retail and People), Kevan Parekh (CFO), and the others Apple prints on that page.

Who Ternus is

Ternus did not arrive from outside. He joined Apple’s product design group in 2001. He became vice president of Hardware Engineering in 2013 and senior vice president — and a member of the executive team — in 2021. The Form 8-K lists his age as 50. Before Apple, Virtual Research Systems. Degree: mechanical engineering, University of Pennsylvania.

Apple’s April 20 Newsroom bio, not a secondary profile, ties him to hardware readers already own: generations of iPhone, Mac, and Apple Watch; work Apple calls instrumental on iPad and AirPods; MacBook Neo; the iPhone 17 lineup and iPhone Air; AirPods hearing health features; reliability and durability pushes; recycled aluminum; 3-D printed titanium on Watch Ultra 3; repairability. That list is Apple’s characterization in the succession release. It is how the company sold a Hardware Engineering CEO to the public in April.

Tim Cook’s line in that release: “John Ternus has the mind of an engineer, the soul of an innovator, and the heart to lead with integrity and with honor.”

What changed on September 1

Three seats moved on the Transition Date.

Ternus became CEO and joined the board. Cook moved from CEO to executive chairman of the board. Levinson, who had been non-executive chairman for 15 years, became lead independent director.

The calendar underneath is short. On April 17, 2026, Apple’s Board appointed Ternus CEO and a board member effective the Transition Date. On April 20, Apple announced that Cook would become Executive Chair and Ternus CEO effective September 1. The Form 8-K (Item 5.02, AccNo 0001140361-26-015711, Date of Report April 17, filed and signed April 20) matches that structure. Cover ticker: AAPL on Nasdaq. Apple said the Board’s approval was unanimous and framed the move as long-term succession planning. Cook stayed CEO through the summer and worked the transition with Ternus. That summer handoff is over.

What Apple says Cook’s Exec Chair job is

Apple’s words matter here, because the title “Executive Chair” can mean anything from ceremonial to operational. The Newsroom sentence is narrower than the speculation that followed it in April.

As executive chairman, Cook “will assist with certain aspects of the company, including engaging with policymakers around the world.”

That is the remit Apple printed. It is not a claim that Cook runs product day to day. It is not a claim that he left. Policymaker engagement is the one concrete example Apple chose to name.

Cook joined Apple in 1998 and had been CEO since 2011. The April release stacks company metrics under that tenure — Apple’s figures, not a third-party audit. In Apple’s telling: market capitalization from about $350 billion to $4 trillion, a rise of more than 1,000 percent; yearly revenue from $108 billion in fiscal 2011 to more than $416 billion in fiscal 2025; presence in more than 200 countries and territories; more than 500 retail stores, with the number of countries that have an Apple Store more than doubled; headcount grown by more than 100,000; an active installed base of more than 2.5 billion devices; Services as a more than $100 billion business; carbon footprint reduced more than 60 percent below 2015 levels while revenue nearly doubled; and the shift to Apple-designed silicon. Those are the company’s scoreboard for the Cook CEO era. They sit next to the new titles, not instead of them.

Hardware under a hardware CEO

Ternus’s path is Hardware Engineering. Srouji is listed as Chief Hardware Officer on the same leadership page that names Ternus CEO. Cook’s printed Exec Chair example is policy engagement, not silicon roadmaps.

Reading the org chart — analysis, not a Ternus quote — the structure looks like continuity with a split. Day-to-day CEO authority sits with someone who spent two decades on the devices. Hardware leadership has a named chief in Srouji. Cook remains available on the remit Apple stated, including the policy lane. Services, software, retail, finance, and legal still have their SVPs on the page. None of that is a strategy memo from Ternus. These primaries do not publish a Ternus AI product roadmap or a supply-chain doctrine under his name.

Product and AI will still be the story Apple tells on stage. Hardware and silicon will still be the story in the bill of materials. Supply chain and China will still be the story in operations. Those are the domains a hardware-path CEO is expected to know. Expectation is not evidence. The opened pages do not hand us Ternus’s first-year plan.

Pay terms from the September 1 amendment

Apple filed an 8-K/A (Amendment No. 1) signed September 1, 2026. It fills in pay terms the April 8-K had deferred.

On the Transition Date, Ternus’s annual salary rose to $3 million. He received a prorated RSU award for fiscal 2026 CEO service with a target value of $2.5 million. For fiscal 2027, his annual equity award target is $55 million: 75 percent performance RSUs tied to total shareholder return versus the S&P 500, and 25 percent time-based RSUs vesting 12.5 percent semiannually over four years.

Cook’s annual salary is $2 million effective September 26, 2026. His fiscal 2027 equity target is $45 million, split 50 percent performance and 50 percent time-based under the same vesting structure the filing describes. The amendment also prints retirement-related vesting language: if termination is due to retirement on or after the first anniversary of a grant, equity can vest subject to performance for the performance RSUs, with settlement on the original schedule. That is a filing mechanic. It is not Apple announcing that Cook has retired.

Those dollars are target terms as summarized in the amendment. They are not cash already paid.

What to watch next

A few open items sit past day one — analysis of what the calendar and the org chart leave unresolved, not predictions with invented numbers.

First Ternus keynote: when he stands on Apple’s stage as CEO, and how he frames the next hardware cycle. AI roadmap communication: what Apple says in its own voice about models, on-device features, and partnerships. Hardware under Srouji: how the Chief Hardware Officer seat shows up in product and silicon messaging beside a hardware-bred CEO. Services continuity: Cue’s lane is still on the leadership page; whether the mix keeps compounding is a results story for later filings. China and supply chain: still central to how Apple makes and sells devices; day-one primaries do not reprint a new doctrine. Policy via Cook: the one Exec Chair task Apple named out loud.

Until Apple prints more, those are watch items. They are not Ternus quotes.

Yesterday the title on the door changed. Today the leadership page agrees. Cook did not exit stage left; he changed chairs, with a remit Apple kept short and specific. Ternus’s résumé is the hardware org chart in human form. The interesting tension is not whether Apple planned a succession — it did, on a dated Board calendar — but how a device company with a silicon habit and a services engine behaves when the CEO seat finally moves after fifteen years.