January 09, 2026
Mark J. Rebilas/Imagn Images
Apple CEO Tim Cook, 65, has been signaling plans to reduce his workload and step down to become chairman of the board, the New York Times reported. The tech giant's head of hardware engineering John Ternus, a University of Pennsylvania graduate, could be in line to replace Cook.
A University of Pennsylvania alumnus could be atop the list of candidates to replace Tim Cook as the next CEO of Apple as the tech giant weighs its succession plans.
John Ternus, a 1997 Penn engineering graduate who excelled on the men's swimming team, appears to be a front-runner for the job after nearly 25 years rising up the ranks of the company, according to a story published Thursday by the New York Times. The report builds on months of speculation that Ternus, 50, is among a shortlist of contenders for the role. Ternus is now Apple's head of hardware engineering.
Cook, 65, has been Apple's CEO since the late Steve Jobs hand-picked him as his replacement before his death in 2011. At the time, Cook was the company's chief operating officer. Since last year, Cook has been signaling plans to reduce his workload and step down with the intent to become chairman of Apple's board, sources told the New York Times. The company's board of directors, which includes Cook, will choose the next CEO.
Ternus, a California native, studied mechanical engineering at Penn. His senior project involved designing a robotic feeding arm that quadriplegics could control using head motions. On the swim team, he shined as a freshman during a dual meet against Swarthmore in 1994, winning the 50-meter freestyle and a 200-meter individual medley at the competition. Records from Penn's athletics department list Ternus as an all-time letter winner for being among the most distinguished swimmers in school history.
Ternus remains closely connected to Penn, where he served as the keynote speaker for the engineering school's undergraduate commencement in 2024. He told graduates about the importance of putting care into their work, sharing an anecdote about his first project at Apple. He was developing a large desktop monitor called the Cinema Display, which was held in places by screws that required 25 tiny grooves on their heads.
Late at night, while visiting a supplier, Ternus recalled inspecting the screws with a magnifying glass and arguing with the manufacturer who had created them with 35 grooves.
"I distinctly remember stepping back for a minute and thinking to myself, 'What the hell am I doing? Is this normal?'" Ternus said. "... I realized it might not be normal, but it's right. It's right because I had already spent months working on that product, and if you're going to spend that much time on something, you should put in your best effort. Maybe a customer notices, maybe they don't, but either way, whenever I saw one of those displays on someone's desk, it mattered to me."
In October, a Bloomberg report on the future of Apple's C-suite identified Ternus as a "charismatic and well-regarded" leader who has earned Cook's trust as a product developer. Ternus played a pivotal role in transitioning Macs from using Intel's chips to adopting Apple's own in 2020, and he was a key decision-maker in deciding price points for the inclusion of top-end features in newer iPhones. Ternus also helped lead a team that designed a magnet technique to hold the iPhone's screen in place — an unproven method at the time — and has led the development of updates to the company's iPads and Macs.
More recently, as part of the release of Apple's iPhone 17 lineup last year, Ternus reportedly spearheaded the creation of the slimmer iPhone Air. The phone has been a sales disappointment, facing complaints about sacrifices in sound and photo quality, but it has been credited as a marketing success that could lay the groundwork for future versions of a more compact iPhone model.
“If you want to make an iPhone every year, Ternus is your guy,” Cameron Rogers, a former manager of product and software engineering at Apple, told the New York Times.
Ternus would be Apple's first CEO to come from a hardware background in more than three decades. Jobs, the Apple co-founder known for revolutionizing personal computing, was a product visionary and marketing wiz. Cook rose as an operations leader who reinvented Apple's supply chain and logistics pipeline. As CEO, his top product releases have included the Apple Watch and AirPods. The company's services also have expanded with the development of Apple Music, iCloud and Apple TV, whose original shows and movies have carved a sturdy place in the streaming wars.
Sources at Apple told the New York Times that Ternus is among several internal CEO candidates, including head of software Craig Federighi and head of services Eddy Cue. Greg Joswiak, head of worldwide marketing, and Deirdre O’Brien, its head of retail and human resources, also are in the running.
Apple has weathered economic challenges and faced questions about its path to innovation in recent years. The company's reliance on China for manufacturing makes its balance sheet susceptible to the Trump administration's tariffs, and Apple has lagged behind the rest of the tech sector in the race for artificial intelligence. Google parent company Alphabet jumped Apple this week as the second-most-valuable company in the world, behind Nvidia, with a market capitalization of $3.98 trillion to Apple's $3.84 trillion at the end of Wednesday's trading session.
It's unknown how soon Apple will choose Cook's successor and when he might step down as CEO. The company's annual salary figures released Thursday said his CEO pay package stood at $74.3 million in 2025.
