Tim Cook built Apple into a $4 trillion company over 15 years. Trump’s tribute to him, however, kept circling back to Trump.
Apple announced Monday that Cook, 65, will step down as CEO on September 1, handing over to John Ternus, the 50-year-old head of hardware engineering and a 25-year company veteran.
During Cook’s tenure, Apple’s market cap rose from $350 billion to $4 trillion, revenue nearly quadrupled, and products such as the iPhone, Apple Watch, AirPods and Vision Pro defined entire categories. Cook called leading Apple “the greatest privilege of my life.”
Against that context, Trump’s response moved differently.
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Posting Tuesday morning, he opened not with Cook’s achievements but with his own. “For me it began with a phone call from Tim at the beginning of my First Term,” he wrote, describing a problem that “only I, as President, could fix.” He added, “wow, it’s Tim Apple (Cook!) calling, how big is that? I was very impressed with myself to have the head of Apple calling to ‘kiss my a–.’”
That was sentence two of the tribute.
He stayed on theme. Trump described resolving Cook’s issue “quickly and effectively” and said he provided “3 or 4 BIG HELPS” during his first term, while noting Cook could be “too aggressive” in his requests.
The post did eventually become a tribute. “Tim Cook had an AMAZING career, almost incomparable, and will go on and continue to do great work for Apple, and whatever else he chooses to work on. Quite simply, Tim Cook is an incredible guy!!!”
The relationship between the two had its unusual moments.
Cook visited the Oval Office last August carrying a 24-karat gold base personalized gift to announce Apple’s additional $100 billion investment in American manufacturing, on top of an earlier $500 billion four-year commitment. Trump praised Cook’s business acumen during the visit before pivoting, without obvious prompting, to what he perceived as Cook’s athletic limitations. “Just about every quality he can have other than athleticism,” Trump said. “I don’t know about that. I’m looking at him. I’m not 100 percent sure about you being a good athlete.”
Cook smiled and kept investing. That $600 billion commitment stands.
Ternus, who takes over September 1, is himself a former competitive swimmer who studied mechanical engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. He joined Apple in 2001, became VP of hardware engineering in 2013, and has been involved in nearly every major Apple product launch of the past decade. Cook called him “a visionary whose contributions to Apple over 25 years are already too numerous to count.” Ternus said Cook had been his mentor and that he was “humbled” to step into the role.
The road ahead looks complicated.
Apple faces geopolitical pressure, tariffs tied to Trump’s policies, and intensifying AI competition from Google and Microsoft. There is also the longer-term question of what comes after the iPhone as it approaches two decades of dominance.
Featured image via YouTube screengrab
