John Ternus officially became Apple’s CEO today, taking the throne over from Tim Cook, who is transitioning to a new role as Executive Chair. Ternus sent his first memo as CEO to employees this morning, praising Cook and sharing his excitement for a “phenomenal” launch next week.
MacRumors shared a copy of the memo, which reads:
Team,
Today, on my first day as CEO, I just wanted to send a quick note to thank everyone for the warm wishes. I also want to extend my deep appreciation to Tim for sharing so much of his knowledge and experience during this transition, and more importantly, for everything he contributed to Apple over the years. We’re so lucky to have had a CEO who led with his values and with such decency and humanity. We are all better for it, and I’m so grateful he’ll be our executive chairman.
I’m honored to be stepping into this role at what is truly the greatest company in the world, and I am so excited about everything we have in store. We have a huge launch next week that’s going to be phenomenal. Thanks for everything you’ve all done to make it possible.
I’m just as excited about what lies beyond that, including the incredible products already in the works and the ones we haven’t even imagined yet that we’ll dream up and create together. There’s no team in the world I’d rather build the future with.
More to come. In the meantime, thanks for your excellent work!
John
Ternus joined Apple as a member of its product design team in 2001 and became a vice president of Hardware Engineering in 2013. He joined the executive team in 2021 as senior vice president of Hardware Engineering. Throughout his tenure at Apple, he has overseen hardware engineering work on a variety of groundbreaking products and was instrumental in the introduction of multiple new product lines, including iPad and AirPods, as well as many generations of products across iPhone, Mac, and Apple Watch.
While Ternus has been on stage during previous Apple events, next week’s “Surprise and Shine” iPhone event will be his first as Apple CEO.
