Steve Jobs takes medical leave of absence

Apple CEO Steve Jobs today sent the following email to all Apple employees:

Team,

I am sure all of you saw my letter last week sharing something very personal with the Apple community. Unfortunately, the curiosity over my personal health continues to be a distraction not only for me and my family, but everyone else at Apple as well. In addition, during the past week I have learned that my health-related issues are more complex than I originally thought.

In order to take myself out of the limelight and focus on my health, and to allow everyone at Apple to focus on delivering extraordinary products, I have decided to take a medical leave of absence until the end of June.

I have asked Tim Cook to be responsible for Apple's day to day operations, and I know he and the rest of the executive management team will do a great job. As CEO, I plan to remain involved in major strategic decisions while I am out. Our board of directors fully supports this plan.

I look forward to seeing all of you this summer.

Steve

Apple originally broke the news in December that it would no longer attend MacWorld and that Steve Jobs would not appear. Rumours of Jobs' health spiralled out of control and affected the companies stock price. Jobs later admitted to poor health the day before this years MacWorld. Unfortunately this years MacWorld wasn't as impressive as many had hoped and rumours regarding Jobs' health were still making the rounds. Jobs has now addressed these rumours in the email above.

According to Reuters Apple shares were temporarily halted. After hours trading AAPL stock is currently down 7.85% at the time of writing. Twitter is currently buzzing with 1000s of tweets regarding the news.

Thanks to Ron21 in our forums for sending this in.