A CNBC host managed to get himself into an inconvenient situation Friday morning when he accidentally said that Apple chief Tim Cook was openly gay.
"Squawk on the Street" Simon Hobbs was interviewing New York Times columnist Jim Stewart on the subject of evaluating gay CEO. Stewart was talking about an upcoming column written about John Browne, the then chief executive of oil industry giant BP who made a high-profile coming out with his book "The Glass Closet: Why Coming Out Is Good For Business."
He also mentioned the lack of other top-level executives in other Fortune 500 companies who, like Browne, openly acknowledged their sexuality. Stewarts believes that there are gay CEOs in major companies, saying he reached out to them but was met with "extremely cool reception." He says the current corporate culture in America prevents gay chief executives from coming out in public, lamenting the fact that sexuality is considered a more important criteria in evaluating CEOs over objective standards such as financial performance.
"I think Tim Cook is fairly open about the fact that he is gay at the head of Apple, isn't he?" asked Hobbs.
This was followed by what is probably the longest two-second silence in Hobbs' life as Stewart and Hobbs' co-hosts attempted to recover from the shock. Hobbs did try to redeem himself, but the bomb had been dropped.
"Oh dear! Was that an error?" he said. "I thought he was open about it."
Stewart said he was not going to talk about whether Apple's head honcho is gay or not.
"I don't want to comment on anybody who might or might not be," Stewart said after shaking his head at Hobbs. "I'm not going to out anybody."
The media has always reported a number of references to Cook's sexuality. Recently, the Apple chief executive commended the White House for striking down sexual discrimination in choosing Federal contractors. He also restated his support for the passage of the Employment Nondiscrrimination Act (ENDA) after he wrote an open letter about it in the Wall Street Journal.
"I applaud White House decision to ban LGBT discrimination at fed contractors. House must act on ENDA. A matter of basic human dignity," he tweeted earlier this month.
Last year, Cook also addressed the United Nations in a rare speech, which some have speculated referred to his sexuality. Cook spoke about his experience with discrimination since his early days in Alabama's Auburn University, saying what people did was "rooted in the fear of someone who is different than the majority."
Of course, in 2014 America, it shouldn't really matter if Tim Cook was gay or not, but a few supporters of the LGBT movement have said that a public declaration of sexuality, if there is going to be any, from one of the most powerful men in Silicon Valley will strengthen their advocacy.
