Tim Cook Tells the World ‘I’m Proud to Be Gay’

Apple CEO Tim Cook at WWDC 2013. Photo: Alex Washburn/WIRED

Apple CEO Tim Cook has taken a major step toward breaking what many call “the glass closet,” openly admitting in a new personal essay that he’s “proud to be gay.”

In the essay published Thursday by Businessweek , Cook acknowledges that while he’s open about his sexuality with friends and colleagues and has never denied it publicly, he hasn’t acknowledged it publicly until now. “So let me be clear: I’m proud to be gay, and I consider being gay among the greatest gifts God has given me,” Cook writes.

This public acknowledgement makes Cook the first openly gay CEO on the Fortune 500 list. He says that until now, he’s preferred to let Apple’s products and services speak for themselves and maintain a modicum of privacy. And yet, he’s come to realize that as one of the most powerful businessmen in the world, he can also be an important role model to other people who are struggling with their sexuality.

“I don’t consider myself an activist, but I realize how much I’ve benefited from the sacrifice of others,” he writes. “So if hearing that the CEO of Apple is gay can help someone struggling to come to terms with who he or she is, or bring comfort to anyone who feels alone, or inspire people to insist on their equality, then it’s worth the trade-off with my own privacy.”

Cook has been widely reported to be gay for some time now. Earlier this year, Out magazine named Cook one of the most powerful gay men in America. This summer, Cook marched in San Francisco’s gay pride parade. And just this week, he called on Alabama leaders to protect the rights of lesbian, gay, transgender, and bisexual people in his home state.

Cook’s decision to now speak publicly about his sexuality—difficult as he says it was—is a strong signal to other gay business leaders that they have nothing to hide. In fact, Cook writes, being a gay man has given him many of the skills he needs to be an effective leader. “It’s been tough and uncomfortable at times, but it has given me the confidence to be myself, to follow my own path, and to rise above adversity and bigotry,” Cook writes. “It’s also given me the skin of a rhinoceros, which comes in handy when you’re the CEO of Apple.”

At the same time, Cook urges other members of the business community not to define gay leaders by their sexuality. “Part of social progress is understanding that a person is not defined only by one’s sexuality, race, or gender,” he writes. “I’m an engineer, an uncle, a nature lover, a fitness nut, a son of the South, a sports fanatic, and many other things.”

Cook concludes his missive with a nod to great civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, whose photographs sit in his office. “I don’t pretend that writing this puts me in their league,” he writes. “All it does is allow me to look at those pictures and know that I’m doing my part, however small, to help others. We pave the sunlit path toward justice together, brick by brick. This is my brick.”