Tech chief mysteriously dropped from Apple’s executive team

Bob Mansfield, Apple’s technologies chief, will no longer be on the company’s executive team.

The shift in Apple’s executive team came suddenly and quietly. Mansfield’s profile mysteriously disappeared from Apple’s website over the weekend, according to MacRumors. That raised questions over whether the removal was simply an error or whether Apple was changing up its executive team.

The answer came quickly, as Apple confirmed the change to multiple media outlets. But no explanation was given for the abrupt move.

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“Bob will no longer be on Apple’s executive team, but he will continue to work on special projects,” Katie Cotton, an Apple spokeswoman, told Bloomberg.

Another spokesman told AllThingsD that Mansfield will continue to report directly to CEO Tim Cook. It’s unclear if Mansfield will continue as the company’s technologies chief.

Last year, Mansfield retired from the company but returned a few months later. His return came when Apple changed up its executive team and gave Mansfield a two-year pay package that made him the second-best-paid executive of any Standard & Poor’s 500 company.

“I am thrilled to tell you that Bob will remain with Apple for an additional two years,” Cook said at the time. “Bob has led some of our most challenging engineering projects for many years.”

As the technologies chief, a position that was created for Mansfield’s return, Mansfield led all of Apple’s wireless and semiconductor teams across the company.

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