On June 27, iconic Apple designer Jony Ive announced his departure from the company. Following the announcement, two reports from Bloomberg and WSJ shed some light over the reasoning behind Ive’s departure. More specifically, a report from earlier this week claimed that Ive had left Cupertino after being ‘dispirited’ by CEO Tim Cook’s lack of interest in product design. He’d also left following conflicts with other Apple executives and its board members.

In an unexpected move, Tim Cook has now responded to the story from WSJ, calling it “absurd”. Cook claimed that a lot of the reporting and the conclusions in the story “just doesn’t match with reality”.

He even went as far as to say that the report lacked an understanding of how the Apple design team and the company works. “It distorts relationships, decisions and events to the point that we just don’t recognize the company it claims to describe.”

“The design team is phenomenally talented”, he added. “We know the truth and we know the incredible things they’re capable of doing. The projects they’re working on will blow you away”, said Cook.

Tim Cook usually doesn’t publicly respond to reports like this, and this is one of the few times the CEO himself has responded to a report, almost completely denying the allegations made. Of course, it’s hard to tell who is actually telling the truth here, but that won’t change the fact that Ive is no longer working directly at Apple.

Tagged with Apple, Jony Ive, Tim Cook