Timothy Donald Cook (born November 1, 1960) is an American business executive who is the current chief executive officer of Apple Inc. Cook had previously been the company's chief operating officer under its co-founder Steve Jobs. Cook joined Apple in March 1998 as a senior vice president for worldwide operations, and then as executive vice president for worldwide sales and operations. He was appointed chief executive on August 24, 2011 after Jobs, who was ill and died that October, resigned. During his tenure as the chief executive, he has advocated for the political reform of international and domestic surveillance, cybersecurity, American manufacturing, and environmental preservation.
Since 2011 when he took over Apple, to 2020, Cook doubled the company's revenue and profit, and the company's market value increased from $348 billion to $1.9 trillion. Cook is also on the boards of directors of Nike, Inc. and the National Football Foundation; he is a trustee of Duke University, his alma mater. Outside of Apple, Cook engages in philanthropy; in March 2015 he said he planned to donate his fortune to charity. In 2014, Cook became the first chief executive of a Fortune 500 company to publicly come out as gay.
