CNBC Chats Tim Cook's Sexuality, Gets Super Awkward

Is Tim Cook gay? Here's our stance: Who cares? So long as the CEO keeps churning out interesting and innovative Apple products, he can be whatever he wants to be; in fact, he could be whatever he wants to be regardless (we just like shiny new devices).

That doesn't stop the usual media speculation over Tim Cook's sexuality, which is as interesting a story as debating whether Jony Ive is getting his hair cut this weekend or not. It's a non-issue turned into an issue, and it made for the world's biggest awkward turtle when it as discussed on CNBC this past Friday morning.

On a "Squawk on the Street" panel, which included New York Times journalist Jim Stewart discussing an interview he had with former BP CEO John Browne about the latter's new book — The Glass Closet: Why Coming Out Is Good Business — co-anchor Simon Hobbs fired off a question insinuating that Tim Cook was gay. We would argue that it was a bit loaded, but we'll let you be the judge:

"I think Tim Cook is fairly open about the fact that he's gay at the head of Apple, isn't he?" Hobbs asks Stewart.

The resulting uncomfortable silence reminded us a bit of when a giant tech presentation utterly fails — say, at WWDC — and the host is left uncomfortably staring at a crashed device or, worse, some quick-thinking tech fiddling with cables. And it gets better. Stewart eventually replied with a bit of a hum and a "no," to which Hobbs countered with an "Ohhhh dear," asking "was that an error?"

Couple that with Stewart's general look of disapproval and head shaking (in the "no" direction), and you get what makes for a picture-perfect moment of awkward television. Stewart eventually does reply to Hobbs' question, rather, statement, and it's a fairly classy way of dealing with the issue:

"I don't want to comment on anybody who might or might not be. I'm not going to out anybody. I called a lot of people and no one at any major company would allow their names to be used," Stewart says.

As you might expect, neither Apple nor Cook have offered up any comments in response to the CNBC segment. Cook is, as most tech-watchers know, fairly closed about his sexual orientation — in the sense that he's never commented on it, because it seems to have very little to do with anything he does as the CEO of a major technology company.

Go figure.