Tim Cook is safe from Apple’s board of directors

A new report claims that despite a series of alleged issues to do with Apple Intelligence and lack of new hardware, CEO Tim Cook can weather any issue because of how dramatically he has grown the company.

Tim Cook is pretty continually criticized for issues ranging from stumbles over the launch of Apple Intelligence, to how he isn’t a product person, and also how he just isn’t his predecessor, Steve Jobs. At times, there are calls from pundits and analysts saying that Cook must be fired, but he never is, he never will be — and now according to Bloomberg, that’s also the firm opinion the opinion of Apple’s board.

Specifically, it’s because although Apple’s shares are down 16% in 2025 — chiefly due to Trump’s whim-based tariffs — they are overall around 1,500% higher than when Cook took over as CEO. The report notes that Apple’s board of directors contains what it describes as Cook loyalists, such as Arthur Levinson, Susan Wagner, and Ronald Sugar, who have rarely interfered with the running of the company.

Bloomberg does exaggerate the degree of difficulties Apple is facing, and is doing so to make a case that other CEOs in other firms would have been fired. As well as missteps with Apple Intelligence, Cook is accused of eroding the company’s design-focused culture.

Apple overall is also criticized for “a decade-long drought of breakthrough mainstream hardware.” That conveniently ignores AirTags, which were launched in 2021 and immediately became ubiquitous worldwide.

At around the same time that AirTags came out, Cook suggested that he would probably retire from Apple before the end of another ten years. If he cannot be fired, then the implication is that he will go when he chooses — and if the new report has no opinion on when it will happen, it does think it knows what he’ll do.

It suggests that the current chair of Apple’s board, Arthur Levinson, will himself step down — since he is already older than the board’s recommended retirement age. Tim Cook could then take over as chair, which it’s claimed would give him “an even tighter grip on the iPhone maker.”

That last seems a stretch given that the same report says that Levinson and the current board have not interfered with Cook’s running of Apple. But at least in theory, it’s possible that Cook could exercise more of the chair’s authority.

Cook succeeding Levinson has been suggested before. A report in June 2025 noted that Levinson and Sugar are now both over the board’s recommended age of 75.

It was because of their reaching 75, that both Al Gore and James Bell stepped down from the board in 2024.