Amidst an already tumultuous week for Apple staff changes, a wild rumor emerged of a supposed conversation where Srouji told Cook he considered leaving, which has now been discounted by the man himself.

Apple AI head John Giannandrea is retiring, as is VP for Environment, Policy, and Social Initiatives Lisa Jackson, and general counsel Kate Adams. This news arrived alongside the less-expected departure of design chief Alan Dye, who is leaving for Meta.

While Dye’s departure was obviously a wrench in otherwise seemingly regular retirement announcements, Bloomberg had a source suggesting Apple’s hardware chief Johny Srouji was also on his way out. A day later on Monday, Johny Srouji shared that he has no intention of "leaving anytime soon," via an internal memo shared by Bloomberg.

The memo isn’t public, of course, but these things leak regularly, and Apple likely expected it to get out fairly quickly to squash the rumor. The rumor itself was questionable on its face, as AppleInsider pointed out. Srouji is nearing retirement at one of the top positions available in his industry.

The original report suggested there was a conversation with Cook, apparently known by this anonymous leaker, and alleged discussions with staff that Srouji would "join another company" if he left Apple. If the story were accurate, it would have been quite the scoop and reinforced speculation about turmoil within Apple’s ranks.

The full quote from Srouji:

"I know you’ve been reading all kind of rumors and speculations about my future at Apple, and I feel that you need to hear from me directly," the memo stated. "I am proud of the amazing Technologies we all build across Displays, Cameras, Sensors, Silicon, Batteries, and a very wide set of technologies, across all of Apple Products. Together we enable the best products in the world. I love my team, and I love my job at Apple, and I don’t plan on leaving anytime soon."

Executive silly season

There used to be more seasonality to Apple news, where things would ebb and flow based on release cycles, but today, it’s a bit more of a constant. As rumors picked up about the next iPhone, when anything and everything would be published for the sake of attention, many would refer to it as "silly season."

It feels as if we’re well into that with speculation around Apple’s leadership team and other employees. In the past year, there has been an increasing number of reports taking significant interest in every single departure from Apple leadership roles.

Even with this increased frequency, the number of higher-up departures is around 15, with a few dozen engineers and lower level staff alongside them. In a company of 164,000 employees, it doesn’t exactly feel like doomsday.

The logical leaps know no bounds when it comes to covering Apple’s executive changes. One report even shared the incredibly unlikely idea that Tony Fadell could take over for Apple CEO Tim Cook, which was sourced from a comment he made about himself.

With Srouji sticking around, at least in the short term, it is a good sign that the narrative surrounding upheaval and unrest at the executive level should slow. Cook isn’t leaving in 2026, and will likely remain until 2029 to wait out the current US administration.

Regardless, Apple is more than a single person, and always has been. While we see companies like Meta or those under Elon Musk shift on the whim of their billionaire owners, Apple doesn’t operate that way.

Expect things to continue operating within the status quo for the foreseeable future. Early 2026 is looking to be quite the interesting time for Apple, as it releases new Apple Home hardware, an iPhone 17e, and completely reconfigures its Apple Intelligence efforts.