Departure of an Apple vice-president after an inappropriate joke on TikTok

Tony Blevins, vice president of procurement at Apple, left the company following a remark deemed inappropriate in a video on TikTok. The video in question has 141,300 likes and many more views.

When a remark does not pass

In the video, Tony Blevins is interviewed by Daniel Mac, a content creator who is doing a series about the jobs of the people he scouts with fancy cars. After seeing Tony Blevins in an expensive Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren, Daniel Mac asks him what he does for a living. The manager replied: “I have luxury cars, I play golf and I caress women with big breasts, but I take my weekends and long vacations”. He also said he had “one hell of a dental plan”.

His remark is in connection with a line from the film arthur by Steve Gordon, released in 1981. In the film, Arthur Bach describes his own career: “I race cars, play tennis and pamper women, but I have weekends off and I’m my own boss.”

Tony Blevins had not been identified as a vice president of Apple when the video was shot in Pebble Beach, California last month. In the meantime, Apple teams have been made aware of this TikTok video and have not really appreciated.

Apple carried out an internal investigation after learning of the TikTok video and Tony Blevins was subsequently removed from its team of a dozen direct reports and several hundred employees. The Vice President told Bloomberg that he was sorry for his words. “I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to anyone who was offended by my misguided attempt at humor,” did he declare.

As VP of Taming, his job was to work with Apple’s vendors and partners. He was part of the team that secured a deal with Globalstar for the iPhone 14’s Emergency Calls functionality with satellites. He also has a reputation for negotiating aggressively with Apple’s suppliers to reduce the society. He worked at Apple for 22 years.