To the Apple fans fixated on defending Tim Cook, who have been clogging my replies on Mastodon and Bluesky over the past few days following my story on @macstories (https://www.macstories.net/stories/are-pride-wallpapers-and-a-watch-band-enough-in-2025/). Here is my response to you:
In 2014, Brendan Eich, creator of the JavaScript language and now CEO of Brave Software, was appointed as CEO of Mozilla. I will quote his Wikipedia page for you (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Eich#Appointment_to_CEO_and_resignation), and you will very quickly understand why:
> The appointment triggered widespread criticism due to Eich's past political donations – specifically, a 2008 donation of $1,000 to California Proposition 8, which called for the banning of same-sex marriage in California, and donations in the amount of $2,100 to Proposition 8 supporter Tom McClintock between 2008 and 2010.
The news of Eich's donations led to major protests inside the company and among Mozilla's supporters, volunteers, and users. Most notably, half of Mozilla's board stepped down. Which ultimately led to him resigning, just 11 days later:
> After 11 days as CEO, Eich resigned on April 3, 2014, and left Mozilla after public outrage. In his personal blog, he posted, "under the present circumstances, I cannot be an effective leader".
I would argue that Tim Cook's donation is an even worse offense than Eich's. Cook made his $1M donation to President Trump's inauguration fund while it had already been public knowledge for years that he would immediately start his mandate by rolling back LGBT rights in devastating ways.
I think it would be more than fair to call for his resignation for the same reason that it was fair to call for Eich's resignation back in 2014. And yet, it seems that a majority of people are choosing to dismiss Cook's donation and subsequent stance regarding Trump's administration as either necessary, pardonable, or irrelevant.
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