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hmmm, anyone have the link to what he's referring to?

I thought this was public knowledge? He might not discuss it but it's hardly a secret.

Indeed. I think it's pretty well "speculated" that Tim Cook is gay.

Wait. So the guy who may or may not have actually reached out to Tim Cook personally about his sexual orientation simply (and correctly) refused to discuss any actual names, but some random talking head with no special knowledge about Tim Cook's sexual orientation claimed he was gay, and that is supposed to constitute an outing?

The title should read: "CNBC host behaves unprofessionally and spreads unconfirmed rumors." Saying that he outed Tim Cook implies that the CNBC host had some special knowledge confirming that the rumors are true, and at this point we just don't know.

The real issue here is that some guy wrote a column about gay CEOs and consistently ran into the fact that very few of them are willing to be named.

This is speculation here, but my guess is that if you've managed to become the CEO of a fortune 500 company, then on a personal level you are probably confident enough and socially stable enough to come out of the closet.

The real reason these gay CEOs (whoever they may be) aren't coming out of the closet is very likely just because the act of a CEO coming out is perceived to negatively affect share prices. I don't know whether this is just an assumption made personally by these CEOs or if the board of directors at their company actively made it clear to them that it would be a bad move, but this phenomenon is the real story and we shouldn't let all of this viral nonsense about Tim Cook being "outed" distract us from fixing it.

For what it's worth, I did some digging and the rumors that Tim Cook is gay seem to be at least partially sourced to a speech he made in 2013.

http://business.time.com/2013/12/15/apple-ceo-tim-cook-gives-remarkable-speech-on-gay-rights-racism/

The relevant bit is at about 3:10 when he says that "I have seen, and I have experienced many other types of discrimination, and all of them were rooted in the fear of people that were different from the majority."

The rest of the speech talks about human rights in general, whether from a perspective of disability, race or gender.

Sure, it sounds like he's hinting at discrimination he experienced as a gay man in Alabama, but it could just as easily be sloppy wording on his part. I'm leaning towards sloppy wording just because I don't think he would hint at his sexual orientation so casually. As Apple's CEO, such a move would be a lot more intentional and carefully orchestrated.

So again, the CNBC host doesn't have a clue what he's talking about and he didn't out anyone. He just spread unsubstantiated rumors.

This guy did not "out" Tim Cook. Matter of fact, Tim Cook was called "The Most Powerful Gay Man in Silicon Valley" by a Gawker property in 2011. The dude is gay. Those who give a shit about such things already know about it.

So what are we talking about?