{"id":202213,"date":"2026-08-26T01:41:28","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T01:41:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/202213\/"},"modified":"2026-08-26T01:41:28","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T01:41:28","slug":"mysterious-tim-cook-reveals-his-partner-mike-at-apple-farewell-event","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/202213\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Mysterious’ Tim Cook Reveals His Partner “Mike” at Apple Farewell Event"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n First Fortune 500 CEO to Come Out as Gay
John Turnus Takes Over as CEO Beginning September 1\n <\/p>\n

Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, who publicly shared that he is gay, introduced his same-sex partner for the first time at a farewell event.<\/p>\n

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Tim Cook, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Apple. Photo by Yonhap News.<\/p>\n

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According to IT media outlet The Information, on the 24th (local time), Apple held a farewell event for Cook at Apple Park in Cupertino, California. During his speech at the event, Cook announced that his partner, “Mike,” was in attendance.<\/p>\n

Although Cook came out as gay in 2014, he has rarely spoken about his private life, such as romantic relationships or family matters. For this reason, attendees reportedly considered it very unusual for Cook to mention his personal life in an official setting.<\/p>\n

Previously, in a 2018 interview with CNN anchor Christiane Amanpour, Cook explained the background of becoming the first top executive among major global companies to come out and stated that he was “proud” of his sexual identity.<\/p>\n

He referred to being gay as “the greatest gift God has given me,” and said, “The reason I came out was because I began hearing about children who read online that I was gay.” He added that he had received emails and letters from children who said they had been bullied or abused because of their sexual orientation.<\/p>\n

Cook said he was surprised to be the first CEO among Fortune 500 companies to come out. Although it was not his intention, he also expressed his happiness that other CEOs later chose to come out as well.<\/p>\n

He noted that coming out had helped him as a leader, explaining, “I have learned what it is like to be a minority. Feeling that I am part of a ‘minority’ group has allowed me to empathize with those who do not belong to the majority.”<\/p>\n

Approximately 200 people attended Cook\u2019s farewell party. Tributes to Cook were made by Laurene Powell Jobs, the wife of the late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs; former Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams; Senior Vice President of Services Eddy Cue; and John Turnus, the next CEO. The pop band OneRepublic is also said to have performed at the central plaza of Apple Park.<\/p>\n

On September 1, Cook will hand over the CEO position to Turnus. However, he will not be leaving Apple entirely. He will become Chair of the Board of Directors, supporting certain work such as engaging with policymakers worldwide. Apple had formally announced this succession plan in April.<\/p>\n

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Hot Picks Today
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Within the company, there is expectation that after the leadership transition from Cook to Turnus, the focus will be on maintaining continuity in Apple\u2019s management approach.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.<\/p>\n

\u00a9 The Asia Business Daily. All rights reserved. Unauthorized AI training and use prohibited.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"First Fortune 500 CEO to Come Out as Gay John Turnus Takes Over as CEO Beginning September 1…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":502,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[155],"tags":[694,695,697,50,321,51,696,256,693,628],"class_list":["post-202213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tim-cook","tag-economic","tag-issue","tag-korea","tag-news","tag-newspaper","tag-politics","tag-society","tag-south-korea","tag-the-asia-business-daily","tag-tim-cook"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/117159270363505184","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202213\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}