Climate Advocate Al Gore and CEO Tim Cook Must Be Ousted From Apple Board: NLPC

Former US vice president and climate campaigner Al Gore speaks at an event in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, on Nov. 9, 2022. (Joseph Eid/AFP via Getty Images)

The National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC), a nonprofit that reports on the ethics of public officials, has made two filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) opposing the position of Apple CEO Tim Cook and climate advocate Al Gore on Apple’s board of directors.

The SEC filing that called for voting against Al Gore’s twenty-first term on the board of directors pointed out that he has built a “personal brand” for himself on climate change after losing a presidential bid against George W. Bush in 2000. “Mr. Gore has little technology, financial, or leadership success. His board membership relies heavily on his climate change expertise. However, Mr. Gore’s climate predictions have been mostly false; he lives a hypocritical carbon-intensive lifestyle; and his climate activism has been a tool for his personal enrichment, much of which depends on industries whose existence relies on government tax credits and subsidies,” the filing stated.

“In addition, he remains vocal and active on progressive political issues, putting Apple’s apolitical reputation at risk. For those reasons, shareholders should vote against his continuation as a director on Apple’s board.”

According to Apple’s 2023 proxy statement, “corporate governance” is stated as one of Gore’s director skills. The filing points out that prior to joining the Apple team, Gore has “never served on a corporate board.”

In contrast, every other board member either serves on the board of another Fortune 500 public company or has experience in executive leadership at a major corporation.

“Innovation and technology” is another skill listed under Gore in the proxy statement. However, Gore has “no prior business or technology experience.”

The filing cited a survey conducted by the Harvard Business Review which asked more than 5,000 board members regarding the top three forms of expertise a new member must have. Climate change, Gore’s “primary area of expertise,” was not included in the survey’s list.

“Apple’s shareholders should consider the opportunity cost of allocating a crucial board seat solely based on climate expertise, considering climate change mitigation is wholly unrelated to Apple’s core business,” the filing stated.

The SEC filing also blamed Gore for using his “public perception as a climate expert as a tool for personal enrichment.” Generation IM, an investment management firm co-founded by Al Gore, manages around $36 billion. Its top three positions are in Microsoft, Charles Schwab, and Amazon, with none of them related to renewable energy.

Citing a Bloomberg analysis, the filing stated that companies in Generation IM’s largest fund, with $26.4 billion in assets, have seen their greenhouse gas emissions increase in recent years.

Proposal Against Tim Cook

In the SEC filing calling for voting against Tim Cook’s twelfth term on the board of directors, NLPC pointed out that Cook has failed “numerous times to live up to what he says are Apple’s ethical standards” ever since he took over as CEO in 2011. In addition, he has also made “multiple strategic mistakes” that ended up costing Apple billions of dollars.

“These include labor rights failures, privacy violations, and overreliance on China. But he is shielded from accountability, in part because of his position on Apple’s board. He should be removed as a director so the proper chain of command can be restored.”

Apple’s 2023 proxy statement lists “global operations” and “risk management” as two of Cook’s director skills.

“Yet Mr. Cook has overseen poor risk management in Apple’s supply-chain policies, particularly regarding its over-reliance on Chinese suppliers, and the company’s close relations with China’s authoritarian regime—decisions that cost Apple between $4 billion and $8 billion under the communist nation’s zero-COVID lockdowns,” the filing states.

Seven of Apple’s suppliers have been linked to forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region where Beijing is said to have pressured hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs and other minorities into such conditions, according to the filing. Apple “lobbied against” the U.S. Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act which took a strong position against forced labor in Xinjiang.

Apple restricted the use of its AirDrop feature in regions that saw protests against the Chinese regime’s COVID-19 policies in November 2022 to prevent protestors from communicating, the filing noted.

The Epoch Times has reached out to Apple for comment.

In an April 2022 testimony before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Commission, Clyde Prestowitz, president of the Washington-based Economic Strategy Institute, had called for Cook to register as a foreign agent due to his ties with the Chinese Communist Party.

“What we have to understand is that our corporations, our major business leaders, the Ray Dalios of the world, and the Tim Cooks of the world, they are powerful here in Washington. You know the money they spend, the entreat they have here in Washington,” Prestowitz said. “In Beijing, they’re on their knees. They kowtow.”

The filing also highlighted that although Cook “publicly advocates” for consumer protection, he “privately enables” Google to collect data from more than two billion active Apple devices globally.

“The company receives roughly one-fifth of its services revenue from the Google partnership alone. And Google’s antitrust scrutiny has brought Apple into the U.S. Justice Department’s crosshairs, posing a risk to Apple’s services revenue and reputation. Regardless, Mr. Cook has publicly defended this partnership,” it said.