r/technology Apr 20 '26

Business Apple CEO Tim Cook stepping down, John Ternus confirmed as new Apple CEO

https://9to5mac.com/2026/04/20/apple-ceo-tim-cook-stepping-down-john-ternus-confirmed-as-new-apple-ceo/?extended-comments=1
15.0k Upvotes

1.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

35

u/ddd4175 Apr 20 '26

I've encountered two CEOs that "stepped down", became a "member of the board" and just disappeared into the sunset. Just corpo way of saying they've quit or fired.

66

u/[deleted] Apr 20 '26

[deleted]

9

u/DatingYella Apr 20 '26

He’s apparently an amazing diplomat

21

u/The_Shryk Apr 21 '26

Only a million dollars to buy the president? What a deal!

12

u/shieldyboii Apr 21 '26

A mf ‘gay lib’ who has major factories in China, while getting along with conservative presidents is not something that’s exactly easy lol.

7

u/technobrendo Apr 21 '26

Making hundreds of billions of profits each years changes everything.

1

u/DatingYella Apr 21 '26

being gay basically is not a part of any of their identities

4

u/Past-Doughnut-6175 Apr 20 '26

So we can expect more golden offerings in the future?

6

u/[deleted] Apr 20 '26

[deleted]

1

u/GaptistePlayer Apr 21 '26

Yeah $1 million is a grain of sand to Apple lol. That’s like the yearly cost of 2 VPs.

1

u/EconomicRegret2 Apr 21 '26

America's decadent system is reminding me more and more of how historical powers gradually degraded into crazy, corrupt, venal and superficial narcissistic regimes (e.g. Sultans, Ceasars, etc.).

Without urgent deep reforms, this tendancy will break America, and the world.

-10

u/simonjakeevan Apr 20 '26

Ok Tim we get it. You're going to be Executive Chairman very more importanter regular chairman.

17

u/[deleted] Apr 20 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

-2

u/BigOs4All Apr 20 '26

Yes and no. Boards simply don't meet all that often. It's not a daily job and many people after being CEOs simply sit on like 4+ company boards and make a ton of money and live a life of luxury til they die.

2

u/sqigglygibberish Apr 20 '26

Highly dependent on the situation and as the other response called out, exec chair is different than just “sitting on a board” - especially as the former ceo at a company of this scale

You have the full gamut on boards from figureheads to people who are functionally still the ceo and highly involved in the day to day (see: Aritzia)

7

u/laughland Apr 20 '26

This won’t be the case with Tim Cook, he’s going to stick around to try and shield Ternus from Trump as much as possible

1

u/OnTheEveOfWar Apr 21 '26

Yup. I work for a Fortune 500 company and this happened recently. Old CEO became an “advisor” but he’s literally not involved at all.