Last month, Apple Fellow Phil Schiller joined Instagram and Threads amid all the controversy surrounding Twitter (now X). And although other Apple executives are also on Instagram, there was one important name missing there: Tim Cook. But now it seems that Apple’s CEO has also joined the Meta-owned social network. Or so we thought.
Update: The account was fake despite being followed by Apple VPs. It has now been taken down by Instagram.
There’s a new Tim Cook account on Instagram
Tim Cook has been on Twitter since 2013, but he has never joined another social network except Weibo, the popular Chinese microblogging platform. And with everything that’s been happening with Twitter since it was acquired by Elon Musk, some users were wondering if Cook would join some other platform like Mastodon or Threads.
A profile under the username @tim.d.cook was created in July 2023. The first post on August 20 celebrated World Photography Day with two photos taken with an iPhone. The second post, created on August 23, is a 30-second ad for the campaign in partnership with 3DPets that was launched last week.
On Twitter, Tim Cook is not known for publishing personal content, unlike Phil Schiller. So it seems plausible to believe that this account could be his. But it turns out that the account is a fake.
It’s fake
After we published the original story, 9to5Mac heard from people familiar with the matter that the account was not created by Tim Cook. Even so, the account is followed by some Apple VPs, such as Lisa Jackson and Alan Dye. Some other Apple employees are also following Tim Cook’s fake Instagram account.
It seems that Apple is trying to take down the account, but that still doesn’t explain why these execs are following a fake Tim Cook account. It’s worth noting that Apple itself has an official Instagram account for sharing photos and videos taken with the iPhone.
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