Apple announces departure of general counsel and policy chief

Apple's wide counsel, Kate Adams, and its vice president for environment, policy, and societal initiatives, Lisa Jackson, are retiring from the company, the iPhone shaper announced connected Thursday.

Jennifer Newstead, Meta's main ineligible officer, volition go Apple's caller wide counsel successful March, and Jackson's authorities affairs unit volition study to her starting precocious adjacent year, Apple said.

The 2 executives, who some reported to Apple CEO Tim Cook, are the latest members of elder enactment to exit the company. In caller weeks, Apple's caput bundle decorator said helium was leaving to articulation Meta, portion Apple said its AI main was retiring, on with its chief operating officer.

Adams joined Apple from Honeywell and became wide counsel successful 2017, and oversaw ineligible matters including litigation, planetary security, and the company's privateness initiatives. Under Adams, Apple grappled with rising antitrust scrutiny and regularisation astir the world, including large lawsuits successful the U.S. implicit the iPhone App Store's restrictions and fees.

Jackson joined Apple successful 2013, and led the company's diverseness programs arsenic good arsenic overmuch of its argumentation enactment successful Washington, D.C. Before that, she spent 4 years arsenic head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, a presumption she was appointed to by President Barack Obama.

With her accent successful areas similar societal justness and renewable energies, Jackson's occupation mislaid relevance during the 2nd Trump administration, which has publically denounced diversity, equity and inclusion programs and slammed efforts to combat clime change.

Apple has faced accrued tariffs from the Trump administration, and Cook has met with President Donald Trump respective times to tout the company's American manufacturing plans arsenic portion of an effort to power policy.

Jackson was instrumental successful Apple's motorboat of its Racial Equity and Justice Initiative pursuing the 2020 execution of George Floyd. She past helped grow the company's equity and justness efforts to different countries, including the U.K., Mexico and New Zealand, according to a report published successful 2023.

"At Apple, we pledge that our resoluteness volition not fade," Jackson wrote successful a conception of that report. "We won't hold action. We volition work, each and each day, connected the urgent task of advancing equity."

Jackson besides worked connected Apple's biology image. Her occupation "focused connected reducing greenhouse gases, protecting aerial and h2o quality, preventing vulnerability to toxic contamination, and expanding outreach to communities connected biology issues," according to her bio connected the company's website. She discussed Apple's plans to go c neutral astatine iPhone motorboat events.

Jackson besides accompanied Cook to respective authoritative functions successful Washington, including authorities dinners.

Newstead, who volition go Apple's apical lawyer, has overseen Meta's ineligible and regulatory matters pertaining to its household of apps similar Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp since 2019. A Meta spokesperson said Newstead volition beryllium staying done the extremity of the twelvemonth and that the institution is actively searching for her replacement.

Prior to Meta, Newstead served arsenic a Trump-appointed ineligible advisor astatine the State Department during the president's archetypal medication successful 2019. 

Before that, she was a spouse astatine Davis Polk & Wardwell and a wide counsel of the White House Office of Management and Budget, among different roles successful the U.S. government.

CNBC's Jonathan Vanian contributed to this story.

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