Although stepping down as CEO of Apple, Steve Jobs will continue as a controversial member of Disney’s board, reports say. Jobs is Disney’s largest shareholder, owning 7.4 percent of the company. Wednesday, Jobs announced he would also stay on as chairman of Apple, the tech giant he co-founded.
Disney cited Jobs health issues as reasons why the former Apple CEO could not attend 75 percent of board meetings – the only member to do so. Earlier this year, several labor unions opposed Jobs’ reelection to the board as one shareholder advisory firm questioned his “ability to fulfill his responsibilities as a director of the company.”
Jobs, who owns 138 million Disney shares after the media company acquired Pixar Animation for $7 billion in 2006, was reelected to the board despite concerns about his health and attendance record. News that Jobs would step down as Apple CEO sent Disney share up 40 cents after losing 13 percent earlier in 2011.
Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.
