Apple’s John Ternus will run one of the world’s most powerful companies; the job is a minefield

During his fifteen-year reign as Apple’s top banana, Tim Cook has become instantly recognizable, incredibly powerful, and extraordinarily wealthy. Most estimates put Cook’s current net worth at around $3 billion, a fortune he has amassed largely through performance-based stock awards as Apple’s market capitalization has grown more than eleven times under his watch to around $4 trillion.

But the job also comes with a lot of baggage. Cook has also had to navigate two Trump administrations and one Biden administration — each with its own attitudes toward Big Tech, China and regulation. Cook also ran afoul of the FBI over encryption, spent years in court defending the App Store against charges that Apple had turned the iPhone into an illegal monopoly, and made compromises to stay in the Chinese market, drawing a lot of unwanted attention from human rights groups. Last but not least, Cook saw how the company’s most ambitious hardware bet – the Vision Pro headset – resonated with consumers. That says nothing about AI, the outcome of which is still unknown. Incoming CEO John Ternus inherits it all.

Here’s a walk through some of Cook’s biggest battles over the years.

We all remember that FBI encryption battle from 2016, right? After a mass shooting at a holiday gathering in San Bernardino, California, the FBI demanded that Apple help unlock the shooter’s iPhone. Cook refused, arguing that encryption was the only meaningful countermeasure to exposing people’s private data and that being forced to break it would set a dangerous precedent. The standoff ultimately ended when the FBI found another way in, but it cemented Apple’s identity as a privacy company and set off years of tension with governments around the world. Ternus will inherit that identity and the obligations that come with it.

The App Store antitrust wars have also been no picnic for Cook. Epic Games sued Apple in federal court over its requirement that apps use Apple’s in-app payment system and its 30% revenue hit (and when the judge pressed Cook on why users couldn’t simply pay developers directly at lower prices, his answers did little to deflect her skepticism). Apple largely prevailed in 2021, with the court refusing to call it a monopoly but ordering it to allow developers to link to third-party payment options. It complied in the strictest sense of the word, by charging a 27% commission on those outside purchases (some discount!), and the courts found this contemptuous. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that ruling in late 2025, and after a request for rehearing was denied last month, Apple is now preparing to petition the Supreme Court, which had already declined to hear its earlier appeal. A lower court has yet to determine what fee Apple can actually charge.

The Epic saga is just one front in a much broader antitrust war. The U.S. Department of Justice sued Apple in March 2024, accusing it of unlawfully dominating the smartphone market by restricting third-party app and device developers — think competing smartwatches, digital wallets and messaging services — in ways that make it harder for users to switch away from the iPhone. A federal judge denied Apple’s request to dismiss the case, meaning the case could drag through the courts for years. And just this week, Apple announced that it faces a possible $38 billion fine in India, where regulators have found it guilty of abusing its dominant position in the app market and say Apple has refused to hand over required financial data – a matter complicated by the fact that Apple’s market share in India is still relatively modest, around 9%, giving it an unusual angle from which to challenge the findings. Ternus inherits this battle right in the middle, with the App Store’s revenue model under direct legal threat.

China has also been a constant and increasingly uncomfortable balancing act. Cook built Apple’s manufacturing operations around Chinese supply chains, leaving the company heavily dependent on a country whose government became both more assertive and less predictable over time. He also made uncomfortable concessions to operate in the Chinese market – most notably removing VPN apps from the Chinese App Store and storing Chinese users’ iCloud data on state-controlled servers. Cook proved adept at insulating Apple from tariffs and trade war risks during Trump’s first term, in part by building a personal relationship with Trump — who upon news of Cook’s retirement noted that he was “an incredible guy!” Apple has already indicated that Cook will continue to help Ternus negotiate geopolitical terrain as executive chairman – an acknowledgment that these relationships are tricky and that Cook’s institutional knowledge remains highly valuable.

Yet AI is perhaps the most immediate and unresolved challenge facing Ternus. Apple’s AI chief, John Giannandrea, is formally leaving the company this month after numerous delays in the rollout of a more capable AI-powered Siri. Rather than relying solely on its own models, Apple has turned to both Google’s Gemini and OpenAI’s ChatGPT to power some Apple Intelligence features. Bob O’Donnell, an experienced market research analyst told Reuters On Monday, Ternus’ biggest challenge will likely be “bringing together a better AI story and offering that relies more on Apple’s own capabilities and less on third parties,” although some have argued that in retrospect the company will seem smarter to wait out the expensive competition currently taking place among today’s biggest AI outfits.

Last but not least, executive turnover at Apple in a broader sense is less discussed, but still significant. Ternus inherits a largely rebuilt leadership team following the recent departures of several other Apple executives over the past year, including the longtime COO, general counseland head of UI design. It is a challenge and an opportunity, where he will have to put his own stamp on things relatively quickly.

The common thread that ties most of these challenges together is that Cook’s greatest skill was his ability to manage complex relationships with governments and partners while keeping things moving. Whether Ternus has the same skill set, or whether Cook’s continued presence as chairman is intended to fill any gaps there, could prove to be one of the more interesting questions of the transition.

A much scarier question hanging over Ternus’ tenure is whether the world that made Apple the most valuable company in the world might actually end. Many industry watchers believe that AI agents will become the primary way people interact with services, making the App Store and its 30% a distant memory. Couple that with the possibility of acquiring new hardware that erodes the iPhone’s grip on our lives, like what OpenAI has in the works, and Ternus could maneuver through much more than just complex relationships and lawsuits.