Pikachu visited Apple Park on Thursday, 27 August 2026, where outgoing Apple chief executive Tim Cook introduced The Pokemon Company’s team to his successor, John Ternus.
The visit landed days before Cook hands the company to Ternus on Tuesday, 1 September 2026, closing out 15 years in the job. He posted the footage to social media, as reported by MacRumors, and the campus tour doubled neatly as a handover moment.
What the Pikachu Apple Park video shows
The clip follows Pikachu around Apple’s ring-shaped Cupertino campus, dancing under the rainbow arch and picking an apple from one of the orchard trees planted across the grounds.
The mascot then heads for the campus pond, which is exactly where the caption Cook posted with the video picks up:
“Today’s agenda at Apple Park: Introduce the @Pokemon team to John, talk gaming, and politely ask Pikachu to stay out of the pond. Two out of three were accomplished.”
Tsunekazu Ishihara, chief executive of The Pokemon Company, was in the room alongside Cook, Ternus and the mascot. It has not been publicly explained what else was on the agenda beyond the timing, with the team stopping in Cupertino on the way to the championships in San Francisco.
Why Pokemon matters to Apple beyond the Pikachu cameo
Apple’s platforms carry a serious chunk of the franchise. Pokemon GO, Pokemon Trading Card Game Pocket, Pokemon UNITE and Pokemon Champions all run on iOS, which makes The Pokemon Company one of the larger third-party publishers sitting inside Apple’s App Store gaming economy rather than a novelty guest.
That is why the throwaway “talk gaming” line in Cook’s caption is the interesting part. Apple has spent recent years pushing Metal, its low-level graphics framework that lets developers speak directly to iPhone silicon, and courting the big studios that make console-grade games worth playing on a phone.
This was not Cook’s first meeting with the character either. He met Pikachu in September 2025 during a trip to Japan for the reopening of Apple Ginza in Tokyo, which suggests the relationship runs deeper than a single photo opportunity.
What Cook’s handover to John Ternus means next
Ternus is currently Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering, the executive who has overseen the silicon and product side of the iPhone, iPad and Mac lines. Cook has been walking him through the job over the past several months and will move into the executive chairman role.
The handover takes effect on Tuesday, 1 September 2026, five days after the Pikachu clip went up. Whether Ternus keeps posting mascots on the campus lawn is anyone’s guess, but Cook has handed him a company where the biggest gaming franchise on earth already knows the way to Cupertino.
