Not a whole lot is known about the new CEO of tech giant Apple, John Ternus, although there’s one personal passion he has never tried to hide.
After taking the helm on September 1, 2026, his latest role after 25 years with the company, the internet has been trying to figure out who he really is – y’know, outside the work side of the equation.
Although Ternus has remained intensely private when it comes to his personal life, there’s one detail that he’s never tried to hide: the bloke loves cars, and he loves racing them.
Shortly after the April 2026 announcement that he would succeed Tim Cook, with the former 15-year CEO now serving as Apple’s executive chairman, The Wall Street Journal wrote a lengthy profile on Ternus which revealed this love of racing.
Noted by many of his colleagues as a keen amateur racer, Ternus spends most of his track time at Laguna Seca in California, where he can lap the challenging 3.6km track in under 1:40 behind the wheel of his Porsche. That’s a solid time for an amateur, although it’s not known exactly which Porsche he owns and races.
It’s no wonder, then, that he eschewed the Miami Formula 1 Grand Prix for the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship in May, where a pair of Porsche 963s wore a retro Apple Computer livery to celebrate 50 years of the company.
Don’t think that means Ternus isn’t into F1 racing, though. That same Miami GP weekend, Apple’s senior vice president of Services and Health, Eddy Cue, told Reuters about Ternus’ love of the sport.
That’s important to note, as Apple TV holds an exclusive five-year deal to broadcast all Formula 1 races in the United States.
“He would actually be here this weekend, but he’s at Laguna Seca. So rest assured if anything, he’s going to be at more races even than Tim,” Cue explained.
“He’s a huge, huge fan of F1, and he’s known about this, he’s a huge supporter. So you’ll continue to see full support from him.”
But Ternus’ racing tastes also extend beyond smooth tarmac circuits. Wanting to indulge his colleagues in his automotive passion, he’s been known to take members of the Apple team to the forests of Washington state to indulge in some off-road rally car racing.
One thing that would be fair to assume, however, is that any plans for the long-rumoured ‘iCar’ will remain shelved.
Although Ternus is known for crossing few people the wrong way at Apple, he has gone toe-to-toe with Sir Jony Ive, a longtime designer at Apple who most recently penned the controversial Ferrari Luce, which some believe draws upon the supposed iCar plans.
The reason for their disagreements centred around the brand’s obsession with thinness during the 2010s, which resulted in performance compromises – something that Ternus, at the time Apple’s vice president of hardware engineering, was not on board with.
It will be interesting to see whether Ternus looks to add to his garage, and indeed make its contents more public, now that he’s in this illustrious new role as Apple CEO. Whether he’ll still have as much time to get behind the wheel, however, will also remain to be seen.
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