Former Apple employee Antonio García Martínez who was sacked after thousands of coworkers signed a petition calling for his removal, has called the company's statement defamatory.
Apple had on May 12 announced the departure of García Martínez, a former Facebook Inc product manager who joined the company's advertising business in April.
"At Apple, we have always strived to create an inclusive, welcoming workplace where everyone is respected and accepted. Behaviour that demeans or discriminates against people for who they are has no place here," Apple spokesman said.
In a series of tweets, García Martínez on May 15 said Apple had been well aware of his writing and had interviewed references he provided to the company about the differences between his professional and literary personas.
"I did not ‘part ways’ with Apple. I was fired by Apple in a snap decision,” García Martínez said on Twitter.3. Apple was well aware of my writing before hiring me. My references were questioned extensively about my bestselling book and my real professional persona (rather than literary one).
This set of prominent Valley VCs and execs are all willing to assert as much under oath.
— Antonio García Martínez (@antoniogm) May 14, 2021
"Apple has issued a statement that clearly implies there was some negative behaviour by me during my time at Apple. That is defamatory and categorically false," he added.
García Martínez further said that Apple "actively recruited" him for his role on the ads team and reached out via a former colleague to convince me to join.
"Apple found my experience in the ads space, specifically around data and privacy, highly relevant to their efforts and persuaded me to leave my then role," he said.
Apple fired him after over 2,000 employees signed an internal petition denouncing his 2016 book Chaos Monkeys over alleged sexist and racist views.
Several remarks made by Martinez in the book didn't go down well with employees. “Most women in the Bay Area are soft and weak, cosseted and naïve despite their claims of worldliness, and generally full of shit,” was among some of the remarks highlighted by Apple employees in their petition.
The petition said that Martinez's hiring was directly opposed to Apple's commitment to inclusion and diversity.
It also brought up Martinez's Reddit thread, where he claimed to lie to his investors during his tenure as tech entrepreneur.