Apple said Antonio García Martínez, a former Facebook product manager who joined its advertising business in April, was no longer with the company.

The iPhone maker made the move after more than 2,000 Apple employees signed an internal petition objecting to what they denounced as sexist and racist views in his 2016 book "Chaos Monkeys" about working in Silicon Valley.

Announcing his departure, Apple said it strived to create an inclusive, welcoming workplace and that "behaviour that demeans or discriminates against people for who they are has no place here". 

The Tame Apple Press has done its best to clear Apple from the charge of its staff that it hired someone who thought women in the area were better off being exchanged for shotgun shells.  The line is that it was all a terrible mistake and Apple didn’t know about  García Martínez writing.

However, García Martínez 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. "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."

It is not clear if García Martínez is going to be a problem for Apple’s legal team in the future.