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Tim Cook, 65, will step down as Apple’s CEO on September 1, 2026. He will be replaced internally by John Ternus, a 25-year company veteran. Cook will have served as chief executive for more than 15 years, having succeeded founder Steve Jobs in 2011.John Ternus, 50, is senior vice president for hardware engineering and will become Apple’s 8th CEO in nearly 50 years. He has big shoes to fill.Here’s how Apple’s stock fared under Cook as CEO and a comparison to its performance under previous CEOs, including founder Steve Jobs. How has Apple’s stock performed under Tim Cook as CEO?Cook took over as CEO on August 24, 2011 — just a couple of months before founder Steve Jobs passed away at 56 years old. Cook had served as chief operating officer prior to becoming CEO, and he had been instrumental in managing Apple’s supply chain and its overseas operations, namely in China. When Cook succeeded Jobs, Apple had about $350 billion in market capitalization and $108 billion in revenue in its fiscal 2011. By April 2026, the tech giant’s market value had surged to more than $4 trillion, and it booked revenue of more than $416 billion in fiscal 2025. During Cook’s tenure as CEO, Apple’s stock surged by almost 2,000%, or 20-fold, to over $273 on a post-split basis as of the end of April 2026. For comparison, the S&P 500 returned around 503% over that same period. In other words, Apple’s stock outperformed the market at large by a massive margin while Cook was the company’s CEO. A Google Sheet showing Apple’s stock performance under Cook in real time can be found here. It includes comparisons to the stock’s performance Related: Tim Cook’s net worth: The Apple CEO’s wealth as he announces retirementHow does Apple’s stock performance under Tim Cook compare to Steve Jobs? Apple’s stock price performance under Cook has rewarded investors well, exceeding the S&P 500 Index’s 500% gain by far. Still, the stock’s performance under Cook lagged that of Jobs (due in part to the sto ck starting from a higher market value). Apple’s founder took over in July 1997 at a time when the company was short on cash and on the verge of bankruptcy — suffering from a weak line of products and a lack of innovation. In just a few years, Jobs transformed Apple and brought it into the digital age with a diverse line of products, including a revamp of Mac computers and the release of the iPod, the iPhone, and the iPad. In the Steve Jobs era, Apple’s stock surged more than 11,000%, or 110-fold — the most it has gained by percentage under any CEO. Its market capitalization was small at around $2 billion when he regained control, but that surged to around $350 billion by the time he stepped down in 2011. Over the same period, revenue jumped from $7 billion in fiscal 1997 to $108 billion in fiscal 2011.CEOTenureStock Price ChangeTim CookAugust 24, 2011 — Present1,949.70%Steve JobsJuly 9, 1997 — August 24, 201111,100.00%More on Apple:History of Apple: Company timeline and factsApple salaries: From retail to engineering to CEODoes Apple pay dividends? A history of rewarding shareholdersHow does Apple’s stock performance under Tim Cook compare with other Apple CEOs? Cook and Jobs handed Apple the best price advances in the stock’s history, for a combined 2,277-fold increase over a nearly three-decade run, and it would be difficult to match or beat either of those individual gains.Apple’s other five CEOs have not fared as well. Before Jobs, Apple’s stock under Gil Amelio, who served as a sort of caretaker CEO to the ailing computer maker from 1996 to 1997, fell 52%. His predecessor, Michael Spindler, oversaw an almost 30% decline from 1993 to 1996. John Sculley, who was recruited from PepsiCo by Jobs in 1983 and was handed his papers a decade later, oversaw just a 105% return. Apple’s first two CEOs didn’t fare as well either. The stock rose 50% under Mike Markkula from 1981 to 1983 and fell 7.7% under Michael Scott from Apple’s first day of trading in late 1980 to early 1981.Apple stock price performance by CEORelated: John Ternus’s net worth as Apple’s next CEO

Elon Musk is making a career out of defying the market by making risky, outsized bets before the rest of the market wakes up and smells the coffee.Musk is right so many times that arguing against him seems to become a folly in the current market. Tesla (TSLA) helped redefine the electric-vehicle market. SpaceX became the dominant force in commercial launches. Following enormous successes in such disparate industries, it becomes harder and harder to bet against Musk, as he has a habit of proving critics wrong.But not every new bet gets judged on vision alone.As new deals are struck, critics will scrutinize price, timing, and whether the risk remains contained or starts to bleed into the rest of Musk’s increasingly interconnected business empire. That is why a reported new deal involving SpaceX and AI coding startup Cursor is drawing so much attention.SpaceX struck a deal, giving it the right to buy Cursor for $60 billion later this year or pay $10 billion to the company for the collaboration if a deal does not take place, The New York Times reported. The tieup also gives Cursor access to SpaceX’s computing resources, including Colossus, the supercomputer connected to xAI.On paper, the bet Musk is making appears sound. AI coding tools are one of the most important battlegrounds in artificial intelligence, and Cursor is certainly making a name for itself in this important area. Cursor said in November 2025 that it raised $2.3 billion in a Series D round at a $29.3 billion post-money valuation, CNBC noted.With the amount of capital raised so far and the niche Cursor is serving, it comes as no surprise that Tesla would want a bigger piece of this pie.Still, the reported terms also create an easy punching bag for critics.SpaceX’s Cursor deal could look too rich too fastThe first issue with the deal is valuation.If SpaceX truly has a path to buy Cursor for $60 billion, that price tag would place the potential deal’s valuation at more than double the startup’s last disclosed valuation from just a few months ago. Even by the standards of the current AI boom, the deal is very aggressive.Supporters can make a compelling case for it. The attraction is obvious. Cursor brings distribution among serious developers, while SpaceX and xAI bring vast computing power. Let’s say that the partnership works out; it could help Musk build a stronger answer to rivals such as Anthropic and OpenAI in one of AI’s most dynamic enterprises.But that does not mean investors will let go of the price.The deal structure itself may lead to even more criticism. It’s a kind of “try before you buy,” which suggests that even those closest to the partnership feel some uncertainty about how much Cursor is really worth and whether the strategic upside will completely come to fruition.Related: Tesla makes new robotaxi move in two major U.S. cities.That generates a familiar tension in the Musk-verse. The deal adds to Musk’s visionary reputation. But the price tag will deter most people. It may seem strategically urgent but also a matter of discipline. And when those numbers get big enough, the market starts to wonder if ambition is outstripping the math. That is what makes this a unique growth story.You’ve got a startup with a sky-high valuation, a reported $60 billion buyout option and $10 billion fallback payment, the sort of setup that almost begs the question of whether Musk is paying again for speed, relevance, and ecosystem control.Tesla investors may see a familiar Elon Musk pattern in Cursor dealThe second issue is not just cost. It is overlap.The Cursor tieup will rely on Colossus infrastructure connected to xAI, while SpaceX also explores a broader alliance involving Mistral and Cursor as Musk tries to take on top AI rivals.In other words, this is not a neatly isolated bet. It sits inside a larger web of Musk-linked companies, shared resources, and overlapping ambitions.More Tesla:Elon Musk’s Terafab bet: what it means for Tesla investorsBank of America revamps Tesla stock priceUBS has a message for Tesla stock investorsThat may sound efficient to Tesla bulls. However, it might lead to something messy for other people. Multiple Musk companies share compute, talent, and strategy, which leads critics to often ask the same question: Where does one company’s interest end, and another’s begin?That question is becoming harder and harder to ignore as Tesla investors already digest Musk’s AI ambitions. In July 2025, Reuters reported that Musk said Tesla shareholders would vote on whether Tesla should invest in xAI, even as a merger was ruled out. Reuters later reported that Tesla had received multiple shareholder proposals related to that possible investment.Now layer that onto Tesla’s current spending picture.Tesla plans to boost capital spending to more than $25 billion in 2026, mainly for artificial intelligence, Robotaxis, and humanoid robots, and expects to post negative free cash flow for the rest of the year, Reuters confirmed on April 23, 2026. The plan is already testing investor faith in unproven bets.That context matters. Even if Tesla isn’t directly buying Cursor, another giant Musk AI deal could still revive a familiar fear for shareholders: that ambitious empire-building gambits have a tendency to come back to haunt Tesla, through distraction, governance worries, or pressure to prop up the wider ecosystem.

Another Musk moonshot? Tesla investors may have reason to pause.Photo by Josh Edelson on Getty Images

Why Elon Musk’s Cursor bet could draw easy criticismThe best defense of the deal is straightforward: Cursor is growing rapidly, coding AI is strategically critical, and Musk has every incentive to pursue stronger products if he wants xAI to catch up with competitors. It’s not a difficult logic to understand.But the criticism is just as easy to map out.Key risks critics could point toValuation risk: A reported $60 billion buy option far exceeds Cursor’s last disclosed $29.3 billion valuation, according to Investopedia.Execution risk: A “try before you buy” structure will make investors believe that the upside is just not there for the investors.Governance risk: The deeper the links among SpaceX, xAI, and possibly Tesla, the more under the scanner everything will become.Tesla spillover risk: Tesla is already increasing spending on unproven AI projects, and shareholders may be less tolerant of another giant Musk-adjacent bet.That is why this story could resonate beyond SpaceX.For bulls, it’s a potentially smart move to lock in talent, processing power, and product momentum in one of AI’s hottest segments. To skeptics, it might seem like something else: yet another richly priced Musk gamble in which investors are asked to buy into the grand plan before the economics are fully visible.And that is where the headline risk exists.If the partnership works, Musk will look brilliant again. If it stumbles, critics will have a good and easy target: The price looked inflated, the empire overlap looked messy, and the warning signs were there from the beginning.In that sense, this is not just a Cursor story.It’s a story about whether investors still want to keep underwriting Musk’s next big idea when the numbers are huge and the structures are complicated, and Tesla is already asking the market for patience on expensive bets of its own.Related: Tesla just pulled off an EV shocker no one saw coming