New Apple CEO John Ternus has bent the knee to President Donald Trump just hours after taking over the reins from Tim Cook.
Ternus, 51, took the helm of the $4 trillion tech giant on Tuesday, replacing Cook, 65, after his 15-year tenure. Cook has moved into the role of executive chairman.
If Ternus is looking to put his own stamp on Apple, he appears to be keeping at least one key part of Cook’s playbook intact: dancing to Trump’s tune.
Apple renamed Lake Ontario to “Lake America” on its Apple Maps service on Tuesday, five days after the erratic president signed an executive order changing the name amid his trade war with Canada. Trump’s order directed the Interior Department to update federal databases and materials with the new name within 30 days.
Apple told Reuters that it made the change after the lake’s name was updated in the U.S. Geographic Names Information System.
The timing raised eyebrows, coming just one day after Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told Fox News that Trump, 80, had “reached out to Apple directly” about the name change. Competitor Google Maps had rolled out the new “Lake America” name over the weekend.
Apple did not immediately respond to the Daily Beast’s questions about why it made the change and what role Ternus played in the decision. The Daily Beast has also reached out to the White House for comment.
For Canadian users, the lake will remain Lake Ontario, while users elsewhere in the world will see both names.Apple took the same approach under Cook after Trump renamed the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America in January 2025.
The company’s acquiescence to Trump drew swift backlash, from both the public and from within the company.
One person familiar with the matter told Status’ Oliver Darcy that “There is not a soul who is for it” and that “everyone considers it f—ing nuts.”
The person added that Apple’s leadership team is “resigned” to capitulating to the president, believing “that Trump will f— with the company if the company doesn’t do what he wants.”
Meanwhile, pro-Democratic influencer Harry Sisson wrote on X, “It’s just so pathetic. Why go along with this stupidity??”
Another X user wrote, “Perfect, glad I switched to @MapQuest. It was obvious Apple would capitulate.”
MapQuest, the veteran navigation app, has become the No.1 navigation app and the No.1 overall free app in the U.S. Apple App Store after it posted an image of Lake Ontario on its X account last week with the caption, “We’re not changing it.”
A third X user hypothesized, “I suspect Apple knew they were going to change the name but wanted to let Tim exit without that as his final legacy.”
Cook’s legacy is marked by plenty of Trump-friendly groveling, however, including attending the White House screening of Melania Trump’s vanity documentary Melaniain January and presenting the gold-obsessed president with a gaudy personalized ornament boasting a 24-karat gold base last summer.
In his final memo to Apple employees as CEO, Cook waxed poetic about leaving the world “better than we found it,” according to Bloomberg.
“This place is proof that culture triumphs over everything. We share a belief that what we build matters, and that we have both the opportunity and the responsibility to leave the world better than we found it,” he wrote.
