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Look who Apple’s Tim Cook is following on Twitter

By
Philip Elmer-DeWitt
Philip Elmer-DeWitt
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By
Philip Elmer-DeWitt
Philip Elmer-DeWitt
Down Arrow Button Icon
September 22, 2013, 12:48 PM ET

FORTUNE — Apple (AAPL) CEO Tim Cook has said so little about his private life that when he joined Twitter and started following some of the accounts he found there, it was a minor revelation.

We knew he was a fan of Auburn football and Duke basketball (the only personal details he includes in his profile).

But we’ve learned a lot more about him by monitoring his Twitter account. We now know that:

  • He’s loyal to the Apple family — he follows Eddy Cue, Phil Schiller, and Laurene Jobs — even if they rarely or, in the case of Steve Jobs’ widow, never tweet.
  • He likes his late night comics: Jimmy Fallon, Jon Stewart, Conan O’Brien. As of Sunday morning, his sole re-tweet was O’Brien’s “iOS7? More like iOSHeaven. #ApplePleaseSendMeAniPad“
  • He reads the New York Times and watches CNN. Or at least he follows Tom Friedman and Anderson Cooper.
  • He’s attracted to power: Pope Francis, Bill Clinton.
  • He’s plugged into the culture: The Museum of Modern Art, Ted Talks.
  • He’s got a political and environmental conscience: Southern Poverty Law Center, RFK Center for Justice and Human Rights, National Parks Conservation Center.
  • He likes his music (iTunes Music, iTunes Festival) but is currently following only one band: Kings of Leon.

By Sunday morning @tim_cook was following 27 Twitter accounts and was, in turn, being followed by more than 200,000.

So far we’ve seen just one innocuous tweet about visiting an Apple Store and that single Conan O’Brien retweet.

About the Author
By Philip Elmer-DeWitt
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