Apple CEO Steve Jobs, has been captured looking sickly and shockingly thin in a series of new photographs.
Pictures surfaced Thursday of the rail-thin Apple chairman - his black sweatshirt hanging loosely over his lanky frame - walking into a Los Angeles restaurant to meet a friend for lunch the day prior.
The 56-year-old Jobs announced in January that he was taking a leave of absence from the company in order to deal with health issues. Though he has not disclosed the nature of his ailment, it is widely assumed he is battling cancer; Jobs survived a rare form of pancreatic cancer in 2004, and underwent a liver transplant five years later.
Jobs' ongoing health battles are a hot topic in tech circles and on Wall Street. When he took a year-long leave in 2008 and 2009 to have the liver transplant, the price of Apple stock dropped more than 20 percent, only to spike upon his return to the company.
Apple stock is down nearly four percent in the past two days, having dropped over 13 points.The new photographs of Jobs come some two weeks after he took the stage at Apple's unveiling of the iPad2 in San Francisco - shortly after a report from the National Enquirer that quoted doctors saying he had just weeks to live.
"We've been working on this product for a while, and I just didn't want to miss today," Jobs told the cheering audience during the March 2 event.
Despite his health woes, Jobs has vowed to return to the company which he turned into an industry power and revitalized with the introductions of the iPhone and iPad.
Just this week he sent a memo to Apple employees in Japan pledging the company's support following the devestating earthquake and tsunami.
"Our hearts go out to you and your families, as well as all of your countrymen who have been touched by this tragedy," he wrote.
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