LOS ANGELES (CelebrtiyAccess) Jimmy Iovine refuted reports that he is leaving Apple, telling Variety Jan. 8 that he is planning on sticking around the company for years to come.
“I am almost 65, have been with Apple for four years and in 2 1/2 years the [Apple Music] service has gotten to well over 30 million subscribers and Beats has continued its successful run,” Iovine told the magazine. “But there’s still a lot more we’d like to do. I am committed to doing whatever Eddy [Cue], Tim [Cook] and Apple need me to do, to help wherever and however I can, to take this all the way. I am in the band.”
Iovine, a few months shy of his 65th birthday, became an executive at Apple in 2014 alongside Dr. Dre for a reported $2.6 billion in cash and $400 million in stock. Recent reports had Iovine and Dr. Dre both cashing in their stock for a profit as they exited the company. However, Iovine said in a Q&A at the Grammy Museum with museum executive director Scott Goldman in Los Angeles, where he was promoting the HBO documentary “The Defiant Ones,” that his Apple stock was was vesting in stages since the sale of Beats and the last will vest in August, adding that he was unhappy with the tone of recent speculation of his exit, calling it “fake news.”
“There is a tiny portion of stock that vests in August, but that’s not what I think about,” Iovine added. “My contract is up in August, but the funny thing is, I don’t have a contract. I have a deal, and certain things happen along that deal. The bottom line is I’m loyal to the guys at Apple. I love Apple, and I really love musicians. That’s why those articles annoyed me, because it had nothing to do with reality. It made it out to be all about money.”
