news. Forsythe was the lead writer on the Xi Jinping story. Richardson said, "I left Bloomberg because of the way the story was mishandled, and because of how the company made misleading statements in the global press and senior executives disparaged the team that worked so hard to execute an incredibly demanding story." He also said that the company has threatened the journalists who worked on the story with legal action if they discuss the incident publicly. Taiwan-based Next Media Animation produced an animated cartoon ridiculing Winkler and Michael Bloomberg. According to French, Bloomberg's handling of the episode "has tainted its corporate identity and journalism brand to a degree that could last for years." Super Micro Computer chip controversy On October 4, 2018, Bloomberg's Businessweek magazine featured an article written by Jordan Robertson and Michael Riley, in which they claimed to have evidence that US companies who were clients of Super Micro Computer had experienced a series of supply chain attacks. The article claimed that the subsidiary of Super Micro Computer, Elemental Technologies, had implanted a chip the size of a pencil tip onto their motherboards that allowed China to gain access to the hardware. It also alleged, based on a quote from a source in the US government, that companies affected by these attacks included Amazon and Apple. The stock price of Super Micro Computer sank by 40% on the day the article was released. On October 9, 2018, VICE released an interview with someone who said that he had mentioned the theoretical scenario to one of the authors of the article, Jordan Robertson, more than a year before its release. Regarding the report, FBI Director Christopher Wray said in Senate on Oct. 10 "be careful what you read." Apple's CEO Tim Cook denied the claim that the company had been affected in an interview with Buzzfeed News, stating: "This did not happen. There's no truth to this." Apple also released an official statement: "We did not uncover any unusual vulnerabilities in the servers we purchased from Super Micro when we updated the firmware and software according to our standard procedures." Apple's denials have also been supported by DHS and GCHQ. Pinwest, a media company founded in Silicon Valley and based in Beijing, identified the chip mentioned in the article as a balun. Pinwest pointed out that its size made it impossible to implement any form of attack; it