Andrew here. In 2017, Tim Cook and I had breakfast in Austin. For a little over an hour, I saw the beginning of Cook’s transformation from a C.E.O. to a diplomat: It was during this time that he began to think about his role in larger terms and come to grips with being a global power broker.
With the announcement on Monday that he would step down as C.E.O., it is worth considering how much of his legacy will be about Apple’s products and its growth in services versus his ability to keep political leaders in the U.S., Europe and Asia from slowing down the company’s growth. And the big question now is whether John Ternus, his successor, will be able to do the same, especially in the A.I. era. Much more below.
What to know about Apple’s next leader
Tim Cook is officially calling time on one of the most consequential runs as C.E.O. in corporate history. During his nearly 15-year stint, the iPhone became perhaps the most successful tech device of all time, adding trillions of dollars to Apple’s market value.
He isn’t leaving the company and will step down to become executive chair on Sept. 1. But his successor, the hardware chief John Ternus, has big shoes to fill.
A recap of Cook’s tenure: After taking the reins in 2011 from Steve Jobs shortly before his death, Cook used his operations expertise to turn Apple into a finely tuned manufacturing titan that happened to mint money.
Apple’s stock has climbed nearly 2,000 percent, far outpacing the return of the S&P 500 over the same time period.
Here’s what to know about Ternus:
He’s a hardware guy who joined Apple about 25 years ago and helped oversee products like the original iPad and the Mac. During his tenure, Apple switched the Mac to Apple-made processors, a huge jump in both computing power and energy efficiency.
Like Cook, he’s considered an even-tempered collaborator, an important quality for overseeing powerful executives like Eddy Cue, the company’s services head. He’s a “man of the people,” his first boss at Apple previously told The Times.
He will confront potentially existential problems for Apple, including its product lineup. The company has rolled out successful offerings like the iPad, AirPods and the Apple Watch under Cook.
But most analysts think Apple hasn’t introduced anything truly transformative in a while. Whether Ternus, who isn’t known for taking big risks, is capable of doing that is up for debate. “Has he made any hard decisions? No,” Cameron Rogers, a former Apple product marketing executive, previously told The Times.
Then there’s artificial intelligence. Apple, which hasn’t spent billions to develop its own large language model, plans to license Google’s Gemini to power a revamped, more chatbot-like Siri.
But Apple investors still want answers about the company’s broader A.I. strategy. As Cue himself testified in a recent Google antitrust trial, A.I. is changing so rapidly that “you may not need an iPhone 10 years from now, as crazy as it sounds.” What’s Ternus’s plan to get ahead of that?
Can Ternus replicate Cook’s success as a global diplomat? Cook became perhaps Silicon Valley’s top ambassador to Washington and Beijing. That has proved especially important in the Trump administrations, helping keep Apple in good stead with President Trump even after he criticized the company for not making iPhones in the U.S.
“Quite simply, Tim Cook is an incredible guy!!!” Trump wrote in a lengthy social media post on Tuesday.
As executive chair, Cook will keep some of that responsibility. But Ternus will be asked to do more than he ever has.
Ternus is 50 years old, which means he could be in the C.E.O. seat for a while. His ability to steer Apple through uncertain times could determine how long he holds it.
HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING
Amazon is investing up to $25 billion more in Anthropic. The e-commerce giant will put $5 billion into the artificial intelligence start-up now, and up to $20 billion later depending on milestones. (That’s on top of the $8 billion it has already invested in Anthropic.) Highlighting the circular nature of many A.I. deals, Anthropic said it would spend more than $100 billion on Amazon Web Services, including on chips, over the next decade. Elsewhere, Google has put together a “strike team” to close the performance gap with Anthropic in A.I. coding, The Information reports, while California accused Amazon of price fixing.
Stocks rise and oil falls on hopes for U.S.-Iran peace talks. Tehran did not commit to new negotiations, but senior officials said that Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s Parliament, would attend if Vice President JD Vance did, The Times reports. (The U.S. has so far turned back 27 ships in its blockade of Iranian ports, raising tensions.) Elsewhere, China appears poised to profit from high energy prices and depressed oil inventories caused by the war, as countries turn to it, warily, for the renewable energy technology they need to replace fossil fuels.
President Trump’s embattled labor secretary steps down. Lori Chavez-DeRemer left the post as multiple scandals and investigations involving her, her top aides and members of her family hang over the agency. (One investigation is looking into allegations that she had an affair with a member of her security team and used department resources for personal trips.) The fallout could linger as Senator Thom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina, who will vote to confirm her replacement, called on senators to step up their vetting of Trump administration nominees.
Three questions for Warsh
Kevin Warsh, President Trump’s pick to run the Fed, is expected to face tough questions on Tuesday at his Senate confirmation hearing.
His path to succeed Jay Powell, the current chair, is widely viewed as uncertain. The president’s threats to fire Powell, and his support for a criminal investigation into the chair, have become a political headache for Republicans. And investors are worried about the fallout from Trump’s repeated broadsides against Fed independence.
Fed watchers will also watch Senator Thom Tillis on Tuesday. The North Carolina Republican, a member of the Senate Banking Committee, has vowed to block confirmation of any of Trump’s Fed picks until the Powell investigation ends.
Warsh’s prepared remarks don’t address the investigation or Trump’s efforts to undermine Fed independence, Colby Smith of The Times reports.
What Warsh plans to say: He’s expected to declare that the Fed’s independence in setting rates is “essential.” But, his prepared remarks say, that independence is “earned — and better policy decisions crafted — by steering clear of distractions.”
Warsh, a top Fed policymaker during the 2008 financial crisis, has accused the central bank in recent years of “mission creep” by focusing on issues outside of monetary policy.
One of his major concerns is the Fed’s balance sheet. He has criticized the central bank’s embrace of quantitative easing, or buying Treasuries and other financial assets to try to tamp down volatility amid financial turmoil. (That said, Q.E., as the practice is known, has buoyed stock markets, something Warsh saw firsthand as a partner at the family office of the billionaire investor Stanley Druckenmiller.)
What DealBook would ask Warsh:
You’ve argued that Q.E. creates market distortions that tend to benefit Wall Street over ordinary Americans. But reversing or slowing the practice could destabilize markets, which would probably anger Trump. How hard would you press for this?
Last summer, you called for “regime change” at the Fed, accusing policymakers there of a “credibility deficit.” There’s already a divide among central bankers over interest rates. Given your remarks, how can you win over policymakers to some kind of consensus?
Your case for lower interest rates is largely built on the premise of productivity gains driving by artificial intelligence. How much have your views on A.I. been shaped by your close ties to Silicon Valley, particularly to tech moguls like Marc Andreessen, Peter Thiel and David Sacks?
A surge in crypto kidnappings
Three men posing as police officers rob about $1 million in Bitcoin from a couple in a violent home invasion in a Paris suburb. A Canadian crypto millionaire is taken hostage outside a tony restaurant in one of Madrid’s wealthiest neighborhoods. A man masquerading as a mail carrier assaults a Seattle couple in their home, demanding cryptocurrency.
A globe-spanning crypto crime spree has the industry and law enforcement on edge even as the market slumps, Vivienne Walt reports. Bitcoin on Tuesday was trading above $76,000, about 40 percent below the record it hit last fall. It’s been fairly stable in recent months, but the crypto police blotter has not been quiet.
That was evident last week in France, a hot spot for crypto ransom attacks. Kidnappers seized a Burgundy mother and her 11-year-old son, demanding $400,000 in Bitcoin from her husband. (Police were able to free them and took seven men into custody.)
The incident happened two days before the start of Paris Blockchain Week, a crypto conference that drew thousands of investors and executives for a gathering in the Louvre’s basement. Security was dialed up, with police escorting V.I.P.s to a swank dinner at the Versailles chateau.
The French deputy interior minister Jean-Didier Berger told DealBook by text that the ministry was taking steps to protect crypto industry professionals and asset holders. “These developments show how quickly organized crime is adapting,” he said.
France is not alone in facing crypto ransom violence, which are called “wrench attacks” after a reference in an online comic about how criminals might use violence to steal crypto.
The number of attacks worldwide almost doubled last year, to 79, from 2024 and is on track to equal or surpass that number in 2026, according to data compiled by Jameson Lopp, a cryptocurrency industry executive who runs a well-known site that tracks the attacks. According to a February report by the digital security firm CertiK, the number of attacks involving physical coercion, such as kidnapping, rose 75 percent in 2025 from the previous year. “Physical violence is now a core threat vector in the crypto ecosystem,” CertiK said in its report.
Criminals case social media for easy prey, experts say. “If you have a lot of crypto influencers publicly bragging, it puts a target on your back,” Marilyne Ordekian, a security and crime science lecturer at University College London, told DealBook.
THE SPEED READ
Deals
The family that controls Brown-Forman, the maker of Jack Daniel’s, reportedly prefers a potential sale to the French rival Pernod Ricard over the American distiller Sazerac and its roughly $15 billion bid. (Reuters)
Eli Lilly agreed to buy Kelonia Therapeutics for up to $7 billion, giving it access to a novel treatment for persistent blood cancer still in development. (Bloomberg)
Politics, policy and regulation
The volatility caused by Trump’s social media posts during the war in Iran has oil traders struggling to adapt, according to Citadel. (FT)
Our Revolution, a progressive group founded by Senator Bernie Sanders, endorsed the hedge fund billionaire Tom Steyer in the race for California governor. (The Intercept)
Best of the rest
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