Despite being on medical leave from the company he co-founded, Apple‘s (AAPL) chief executive Steve Jobs attended a meeting of technology industry leaders with U.S. President Barack Obama in northern California on Thursday.
According to Reuters, Mr. Jobs, who remained out of sight of the pool of reporters covering the event (a White House official confirmed that all those invited were in attendance), was joined by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Google Inc (GOOG) Chief Executive Eric Schmidt, Oracle (ORCL) CEO Larry Ellison, Cisco Systems (CSCO) CEO and chairman John Chambers, Yahoo Inc. (YHOO) president and CEO Carol Bartz and other members of the Silicon Valley elite for talks with President Obama at the home of John Doerr of venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.
Reuters reported that the meeting was part of Obama’s two-day West Coast visit, which was “aimed at promoting technological innovation to help boost the struggling U.S. economy and reduce stubbornly high unemployment — considered crucial to [the President’s] 2012 re-election chances.”
Yesterday it was reported by The National Enquirer that Jobs, a pancreatic cancer survivor, had been seen at the Stanford Cancer Center in Palo Alto, California, ostensibly to receive additional treatment.
Apple has not provided any details on Jobs’ health or say when he might return from his medical leave. Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook is currently running Apple’s day-to-day operations.
Update:
Here is a photo released by the White House on Friday showing Jobs, along with other tech luminaries, raising a toast with Obama.
Leave a Reply