Tony Blevins

Tony J. Blevins (born February 1967) is the former vice president of procurement at Apple Inc. He was among 30 executives who reported directly to Apple CEO Tim Cook.

Early life and education
Anthony Jackson "Tony" Blevins was born to Jack and Iris Blevins of, where he was raised and graduated from in 1985. He received a bachelor's degree in industrial engineering from the (NCSU)  in 1989.

Career
While an undergraduate, Blevins was in a with. After graduating, he joined IBM and worked in engineering, finance, procurement, and production control. He eventually became the program director at an IBM development laboratory in.

Apple
Blevins left IBM and joined Apple Computer in 2000, where he led a team that procured parts for Apple products, including every version of the iPod. After Apple Computer became Apple Inc., his department continued to do so for every iPhone and iPad under his tenure. Blevins became known for his ruthlessness in negotiating favorable contracts on behalf of Apple, where he was nicknamed "The Blevinator". He would often schedule meetings with various suppliers on the same date at Apple's headquarters, so that they would become aware of their competition while waiting in the lobby. Blevins once rejected a contract proposal from (UPS) by sending it back via. During the construction of Apple Park, CEO Tim Cook assigned Blevins with managing the cost of the glass that was used, which he then negotiated down by hundreds of millions from the initial 1 billion estimate.

Blevins left Apple in September 2022 after a TikTok post of him surfaced and went viral. In the posted video, recorded at events related to the charity car show in the preceding August, Blevins made a vulgar remark derived from dialog in the 1981 comedy film  after parking his expensive  at the  course. He was reported to Apple's human resources department by staff reportedly from within the procurement team. Blevins publicly apologized for his "mistaken attempt at humor". The final decision on the departure of Blevins was reportedly made by COO Jeff Williams. After the news became public, Apple stock fell to its lowest point in the financial quarter.

Honors
In 2018, Blevins was named a distinguished alumnus by the Edward P. Fitts Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at.

Trivia
In March 2011, Blevins was stranded at during a business trip to Japan after the area was hit by the.