Rumours about Apple are a cottage industry these days. Bloggers, fake insiders and lazy tech analysts make bank peddling nonsense about what's going to be in the next iPhone or when the Apple Car is supposedly coming. But this morning's rumour takes on a different flavour: apparently, Apple is about to make a big shift in leadership as CEO Tim Cook prepares to step down.

Where is this coming from?

Bloomberg's Mark Gurman - an old industry acquaintance who I have to say is typically the most reliable source on all things going on inside Cupertino - is carrying the story today.

In it, he reports that Apple's longtime CEO Tim Cook is already handing off his big duties to other execs in the business as he prepares to push his chair back one last time at the company's Cupertino HQ.

Cook first joined Apple in 1998 as the company's SVP of worldwide operations. He joined the business after stints at IBM and as Compaq's chief operating officer, and said it was the late Steve Jobs who personally asked him to join the business.

He would go on to succeed Jobs in 2011 after the co-founder stepped back due to health reasons and later passed away. Coincidentally, this rumour comes just days after the most-recent anniversary of Jobs' death.

Who's next in line?

The name to watch is John Ternus, Apple’s hardware engineering chief. He joined Apple’s product design team in 2001, became a vice president in 2013, and has been senior vice president since 2021. He oversees hardware across iPhone, iPad, Mac and AirPods, and has become a regular public face at launch events. Bloomberg positions him as the leading internal contender. 

Apple may decide it needs a product technologist at the top for the next cycle. Ternus runs the groups that ship Apple’s core devices and has been taking on more cross-product decisions. That profile fits the brief if the board wants steadier execution over a flashy “moonshot” pivot.

Cook took the reins in August 2011. Since then Apple’s stock has risen roughly fourteen-fold by mid-2025, with market value peaking above $3 trillion and sitting around $3.0 trillion today. Services became a second growth engine, and Apple executed massive supply-chain and silicon transitions.

Take a look at the share price since 2011 and you quickly realise the kind of value Cook delivered for Apple as a business:

Whatever happens next, he leaves a hard act to follow.