Apple CEO John Ternus Owns One of Porsche's Wildest, Rarest Track-Bred Machines

Most new CEOs mark their first week with handshakes and a corner office tour. John Ternus marked his with an outrageous lap time, literally. Is there a hidden message there for the Apple faithful? Is he the man in a hurry at Apple to get it well past the $5 trillion market cap, highest-ever, achieved in July, 2026 under former CEO Tim Cook? As he steps into the role Cook vacated on September 1, the internet is busy dissecting Apple's next move, but Ternus's real weekend hobby has nothing to do with keynotes. It involves a race circuit, a stopwatch, and a Porsche 935 track car most people will never even see in person, let alone drive.

The Porsche That Isn't Road Legal

Forget the Boxster, Cook once drove to the office, Ternus, a mechanical engineering graduate, doesn't collect cars, he races them. His weapon of choice is a 2019 Porsche 935, one of just 77 ever made, and not the kind you take to brunch. 

Built on the 991-gen 911 GT2 RS bones, it runs a 3.8-litre twin-turbo flat-six pushing 700 PS through a seven-speed PDK gearbox, now valued at roughly $1.5 million. Carbon-fibre body, motorsport-grade parts, this thing was built for corners, not commutes. 

Ternus takes his passion to the Laguna Seca, barely an hour from Apple Park and, fittingly, the very track where the modern 935 was unveiled in 2018. He's reportedly lapping it in under 1 minute 40 seconds.

Now Comes The Part Without A Racing Line

Ternus is not new to Apple though. A 25-year Apple veteran, Ternus joined the design team in 2001 and has since had a hand in the iPad, AirPods, and hardware development across iPhone, Mac, and Apple Watch. Product experience, he has in spades. But his first real test as CEO arrives fast: the September 9 iPhone event, right as Apple sits at a $5 trillion valuation with nowhere to hide. 

Cook has handed him a profitable business and a supply chain most companies would kill for, but also a growing AI question mark, slowing growth, sharper competition from the likes of OpenAI, and a memory chip shortage nobody asked for, but everyone knew was coming. The costs are rising, the memory rates for iPhone 18 Pro models is up 400%, and Ternus needs to find a solution that Cook has not been able to do, except try and absorb the rising component costs without passing them on to the customers via retail price hikes. Will his passion for speed transition to similar and quick growth for Apple? Keep tuned to this space.