Apple’s board of directors and senior executives have accelerated Tim Cook’s succession plans, Sources told… Financial Times.
After serving as CEO for 14 years, Cook may step down as early as next year, the report said.
Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering, John Ternos, 50, is widely viewed as the most likely successor, but no final decisions have been made yet, the sources said. foot.
The engineer joined Apple’s product design team in 2001 and has overseen hardware engineering for most of the major products the tech company has launched since then, according to Ternus. LinkedIn profile.
He also played a prominent role during Apple’s latest keynotes, Introducing products Like the new iPhone Air. Ternus was rumored to be a possible successor to Cook Previous reports.
The company is unlikely to name a new CEO before its next earnings report in late January, and an announcement early in the year will allow the new leadership team to settle in before its annual earnings report. Eventsthe foot He said.
Preparations for the succession have been planned for a long time and are not related to the current performance of the company, which expects strong sales at the end of the year, people close to Apple told… foot.
Apple did not immediately respond Luck Requested comment and declined to provide comment to foot.
The $4 trillion company is anticipation Year-over-year revenue growth of 10% to 12% for the holiday quarter ending in December, driven by the release of the iPhone 17 model in September.
Ternus will take over the leadership of the technology giant at an important time in its development. Although Apple has seen sales success for iPhones and new products like Airpods over the past two decades, it has struggled to break into artificial intelligence and keep up with competitors.
Instead, Apple spent Much less in AI investments compared to Mark Zuckerberg’s investments in Meta, Amazon, Alphabet, and Microsoft.
It was Apple criticize By analysts this year for lack of a clear strategy for artificial intelligence. Despite agreeing to a multibillion-dollar budget to run its own models over the cloud in 2026, it was reported in June that Apple has so far… Looking Using models from OpenAI and Anthropic to power its updated version of Siri, rather than using technology the company built internally.
AI-powered Siri, originally scheduled for 2025, will be as well delay Until 2026 or later due to a series of technical challenges, which the company announced earlier this year.
Apple has also lost a number of senior members of its AI team since January, many of whom joined Meta’s AI and Superintelligence Labs during this year’s talent hunting wars. The exodus of AI executives at Apple included Rumeng Pang, the former head of Apple’s enterprise models and core AI team, who joined Meta with a compensation package said to be worth… 200 million dollars.
The company also faces increasing competition from one of its most influential former employees.
In May, Sam Altman’s OpenAI acquired the io startup for roughly $6.5 billion, bringing in former Apple chief designer Jony Ive to build AI hardware. The 58-year-old designer was instrumental in creating the iPhone, iPod and iPad.
Cook, Apple’s former chief operating officer, turns 65 this month. He succeeded in increasing the company’s market value to $4 trillion from $350 billion in 2011, when he took over the CEO role from company co-founder Steve Jobs.
Under Cook, it became Apple The first public joint stock company Reaching $1 trillion in market capitalization in 2018, then becoming the first company to reach $3 trillion in market capitalization in 2022.
But recently, its stock price has been lagging behind big tech rivals Alphabet, Nvidia and Microsoft, although Apple is trading… Near all-time high After announcing strong earnings in October.
Apple has also dealt with tariff complexities as trade tensions between the US and China have disrupted its supply chain.
Cook had previously said he preferred an internal candidate to replace him, adding that the company had “very detailed succession plans.”
“I really want this person to come from within Apple,” Cook told singer Dua Lipa last year. Podcast At your service.
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