Bloomberg finally pushed Tim Cook too far

Blasting Jordan Robertson and Michael Riley’s reporting on the Chinese spy chip story, Apple’s CEO calls for a retraction.

From his interview with BuzzFeed’s John Paczkowski:

I was involved in our response to this story from the beginning. I personally talked to the Bloomberg reporters along with Bruce Sewell, who was then our general counsel. We were very clear with them that this did not happen, and answered all their questions. Each time they brought this up to us, the story changed, and each time we investigated we found nothing.

We turned the company upside down. Email searches, data center records, financial records, shipment records. We really forensically whipped through the company to dig very deep and each time we came back to the same conclusion: This did not happen. There’s no truth to this.

They need to do that right thing and retract it.

Ex Paczknowski: This is an extraordinary statement from Cook and Apple. The company has never previously publicly (though it may have done so privately) called for the retraction of a news story — even in cases where the stories have had major errors or were demonstratively false, such as a This American Life episode that was shown to be fabricated.

My take: Has Bloomberg’s Apple coverage seemed more hostile lately? It’s not just Mark Gurman anymore.

See also:

• Apple blasts Bloomberg’s report of Chinese infiltration
• No Chinese spy chip, says deep state
• The Information had much of Bloomberg’s Apple story 19 months ago
• Source warned Bloomberg off the Apple spy chip story