Just In: Tim Cook Stepping Down As Apple CEO

Apple CEO Tim Cook is stepping down from the position he has held since 2011, when he took over for company founder Steve Jobs.

Cook will become executive chairman of Apple’s board, while longtime employee John Ternus is expected to take over as CEO by the end of summer.

Ternus currently oversees hardware engineering at Apple, and CNN’s Clare Duffy called him a “longtime and beloved leader at the company where he has worked since 2001.

“Tim Cook says that he will stay around at Apple to help oversee this transition,” Duffy said. “This isn’t totally a surprise. There have been questions about Apple’s future, the future of the leadership at the company, especially amid some stumbles for the company. Over the past few years, the company has been in particular behind other big tech rivals in artificial intelligence. So there had been some questions about whether we would see a new Apple leader sometime in the next few years.”

Duffy added, “But this is sort of a surprise that we are getting this out of the blue today.”

Watch the clip above via CNN.

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