Inquiry into the CEOs health began yesterday
There has been a lot of debate about whether the state of Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ health is a personal matter or a public one. The SEC, it seems, has just decided it’s a public one, and opened an inquiry into Apple’s disclosures on the matter yesterday. Last week, Jobs took a leave of absence from heading up Apple until the end of June, issuing a statement saying that his health issues were “more complex” than he originally thought. This announcement came just days after an announcement that he had little more than a hormone imbalance, which required a relatively straightforward treatment. Jobs has always maintained that his health is no one’s business but his own, but while he has no legal duty to issue statements on his health, if he does issue a statement, it can’t be misleading. Like it or not, his health is material to Apple’s stock price, and it affects how investors view his company’s outlook.