Successor to Tim Cook as chief executive of Apple, effective September 2026. A 50-year-old Apple insider, Ternus took over as head of hardware in 2021. He was named CEO on April 20th 2026.
Ternus seems inclined to stick to the approach that served Cook so well. The danger is that artificial intelligence and trade wars make Apple a bet on the past. The company will thrive if making AI models is less lucrative than selling AI applications and the hardware on which they run; if trade barriers reconfigure cross-border supply chains rather than destroy them; and if relations between China and the West are strained but not ruptured.
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