In his time running Apple, Tim Cook has been more like the “president of a country, not a company,” according to Deepwater Asset Management’s Gene Munster.
Cook’s predecessor, Steve Jobs, is considered one of the great product innovators in modern American history. But the role has been a very different one since Jobs stepped down in 2011, shortly before he died from cancer, and tapped Cook to take over.
With his run as CEO coming to an end on Sept. 1, Cook’s legacy will be one of tremendous value creation — Apple’s market cap increased from about $350 billion to $4 trillion on his watch — even if the company’s products were more evolutionary than revolutionary during his 15-year run.
That Cook, 65, is handing the reins to longtime hardware boss John Ternus is no great surprise. Multiple news outlets profiled Ternus in recent months, with The New York Times running a story in January headlined, “The Man Who Could Be Apple’s Next C.E.O.”
Still, the move is taking place “about two years earlier than what I was expecting,” Munster, managing partner at Deepwater, told CNBC’s “Closing Bell: Overtime” after the news broke Monday.
Munster said Cook has cleverly navigated the Trump administration’s tariff policies, which posed a particular threat to Apple because of how much the company counts on China for the manufacturing of its devices.In 2014, Cook unveiled the Apple Watch, calling it “the most personal product we’ve ever made.” Then came the AirPods in 2016.
In both cases, Apple was jumping into a very familiar category but was able to charge a premium for a product that was primarily targeted at iPhone users and offered rich enhancements to existing offerings.
Apple’s wearables category topped $41 billion in annual revenue in fiscal 2022, accounting for over 10% of total sales that year, and up from $25 billion three years earlier.
But it’s been a tough market for maintaining momentum due to a swarm of competition and only incremental new features. The company has also failed to turn its high-priced Vision Pro into a consumer hit, as virtual reality remains a niche market. The base Vision Pro sells for $3,500, while Meta’s Quest 3S starts at $350.
Apple’s wearables business is now engulfed in a multiyear decline, with revenue falling 4% in fiscal 2025 to $35.7 billion, making up 8.6% of total revenue.
Reports are swirling about what kind of wearable could be next for Apple — weather it’s smart glasses, a pendant or something else. In any case, the company is now competing on the device front with legendary designer Jony Ive, who joined OpenAI last year when the ChatGPT maker bought his startup for more than $6 billion.
Ive designed the iPod, iPhone, iPad and MacBook Air. He left Apple in 2019.
Far from suffering since Trump’s second White House term began in January 2025, Apple’s stock is up about 20%, and Cook hasn’t been shy at all about cozying up to the president in ways meant to charm the commander in chief.
In August, Cook joined Trump at an event in the Oval Office touting a new $100 billion investment commitment by Apple to American manufacturing, and gifted the president a gold and glass plaque.
“Thank you all, and thank you, President Trump, for putting American innovation and American jobs front and center,” Cook said at the event, which brought Apple’s total planned spend to $600 billion in the U.S. over the next five years.
Investors have been handsomely rewarded for sticking with Cook.
Apple’s stock is close to 20 times higher than it was when he took over, while the S&P 500 is up about sixfold over that stretch. Most company analysts and industry experts attribute Cook’s success to his rigor and financial discipline rather than to product innovation.
“Building on Steve Jobs’ visionary product leadership, Tim will likely be remembered for his operational leadership — transforming and scaling Apple globally, deepening its services platform, strengthening its supply chain, and making the company more operationally resilient and shareholder-focused,” said Rick Wargo, managing partner at executive search and leadership consulting firm Boyden.
Revenue almost quadrupled under Cook, climbing to more than $400 billion in the latest fiscal year. Cook is best known in Silicon Valley as an operations guru, revamping Apple’s supply chain after joining in 1998 as an executive vice president of worldwide sales and operations.
When he arrived, Apple was near bankruptcy. Years later, he’d become one of Jobs’ top lieutenants and was elevated to the role of operations chief in 2005, two years before the launch of the iPhone.
Cook has continued to benefit from the popularity of the iPhone, which has maintained its dominance for almost two decades in a growing smartphone market. He’s also credited with making some key moves to diversify Apple’s business and capitalize on the company’s mammoth user base, which now amounts to 2.5 billion active devices across the globe.
