news and bulletin. steve jobs is bowing out as ceo of apple and his resignation letter, he said he could no longer live out his expectations as ceo. jobs has been on medical leave since january. he'll stay on as apple's chairman and be succeeded as former operating officer tim kirk. and another office may have reopened after the east coast quake, however, the washington monument will stay closed until engineers prepare cracks at the top. >> that's it. thanks for watching. tonight, breaking news, steve jobs resigns as ceo of apple. what this means to the company that changed the world. the latest stunning developments. and gathering storms in the atlantic. hurricane irene bigger and stronger, bearing down on the east coast. where will it hit? winds over 100 miles an hour, what it will do to a city like new york. on the other side of the world, battles still raging in tripoli. moammar gadhafi forces going house to house. is this the colonel's last stand? we'll ask cnn's sara sidner, what's it like to be in the middle of the chaos. >> more guns. >> this is "piers morgan tonight." tonight's breaking news. steve jobs stepping down as ceo of apple. joe knows sara. joe, is this a surprise? obviously, lots of speculation about steve jobs' future because of his health? what's your view? >> the only real surprise is that it happened tonight, really. he's been sick for a long time. he has not looked well, obviously, in appearances recently he's had a liver transplant, a tumor on his pancreas. he's had various other ailments. so his health, one assumes has been deteriorating, and there is a certain kind of sad inevitability to this moment. >> obviously apple's become this extraordinary global business. one of the biggest market caps of any american company in history. what impact will steve jobs standing down as the chief executive officer have on the company, do you think, if any? >> well, steve jobs is one of the great innovators in the history of modern capitalism. he's also one of the genius marketers. with ways of getting people to get interested in and buying products, that nobody -- we haven't seen in a long time. apple is going to miss that, without question. and the real question going forward is, they've probably got a pipeline of a couple of years, maybe three years worth of product ideas, product innovations, what will they have after that. will tim cook, the new ceo, who really is an operational guy, will he be able to come up with a product that's as out-of-the box as the iphone was when it first came, or the ipad when it first came out. and we don't know the answer to that. i think most people would be a little bit dubious. but, you know, apple has a strong bent, and i think they deserve the benefit of the doubt at this particular moment. >> steve jobs made a request in his resignation letter to become chairman of the company, and that has now happened. what do you see his role as being now? what's the difference for a company like apple between the ceo and the chairman, if you're someone as hands-on as steve jobs? >> that is the whole key of steve jobs. on the one happened he's the micromanager from hell, but on the other hand his micromanagement has been so involved for so long. he's involved in the look and feel of the products. clearly he's saying in this letter, i can't do that anymore. i'm not strong enough. i just don't have the -- i can't make that kind of effort anymore, because of my health. i think apple will miss that. i believe that his almost dictatorial qualities are one of the things that made apple such a great company. and although i'm sure he has people who are just as obsessive as he is working there, part of his genius is that his intuition has been so phenomenal over the years. you know, do it this way, not this way. and he's almost always been right. at least since he came back to the company a decade or more ago. whether his successors have that same instinct is highly unlikely, just because it's part of what makes steve jobs really a business genius. >> in many ways, he's become the most valuable ceo in the history of business. it couldn't really come at a worse time for the american economy, in the sense that here's the standard-bearer of what america really should be doing, producing great product to sell to the rest of the world, and domestically, and now at the peak of america's financial problems, the top guy has to step down. what kind of impact do you think it will have on the markets, on the global economy? you know, what kind of importance will they put to this? >> less than you'd think, piers. look, tomorrow is going to be a rough day in the market for apple stock, without question. but apple is going to be fine, at least in the short term. and it's going to continue to make these products, it's going to continue to grow and expand. it's not like he's disappearing and it's not like the company is going to stop doing well in the short term. you know, hopefully, hopefully in the long term, the u.s. economy will recover and apple will continue to innovate. you know, you can't really think beyond that, because there's so many unknowns, both about the american economy and about the capabilities, the innovative capabilities of the people who work for steve jobs. >> joe, you know him personally. you've spoken to him privately about his health. what's he always said to you about the condition he's been in? >> well, first of all, steve jobs and i do not have what one would call a friendly relationship. he's mostly been mad at me for the stuff i've written about his health. so let's just be clear about that. secondly, you know, he's a very -- despite being one of the most public figures in the country, he is a man who values his privacy a great deal. and he has told as few people as possible, as little as possible about his health. one of the reasons it was an issue between him and i is because i was writing columns basically saying apple had a requirement that it should under the law disclose more about his health to the shareholders. he disagreed with that. one of the reasons he called to yell at me in private is because he wanted to tell me he thought i was full of baloney. he has basically confirmed to people who know him well, the sort of outlines, the liver transplant and the ongoing battle with the cancer, with the side effects of the operation to treat his pancreatic condition. and i think they have continued to take a toll on him. he has good days, he has bad days. you know, he has -- you know, when you or i catch a cold, it's not a big deal. when steve jobs catches a cold, it's a huge deal. i think it's just been a gradual deterioration of his health all along. so finally he's gotten to the point where i just don't think he feels like he's up to the effort that's required to run apple the way he's always run it. >> for someone like steve jobs who is so personally linked to this company, who helped build it from nothing, to give up the reins as he's doing, would you imagine that his health has deteriorated pretty significantly? >> i hate to speculate like that. i certainly -- apple is his life. even in the years when he was kind of in exile, he thought obsessively about apple in the -- during that period when he was not at the company. he cares about it almost as much as he cares about his wife and children. so this has to be a hard day for him. and i think the appropriate way to think about this is to wish him luck and wish him well, and hope that as board chairman he can still have -- he will still have some time to have influence over the company. >> i completely second all that, as a big apple consumer myself. >> aren't we all. >> he's a genius and he's done an incredible job for his company. also for the american economy. we wish him the very best. joe, thank you very much. >> thank you for having me, piers, i appreciate it. now, we're going to bring in lee gallagher, assistant manager. >> first of all, this is stunning news today. i think it took everyone by surprise. tim cook has been the behind-the-scenes guy at apple for years now, and in the past few years he's really been elevated. he's taken on a much more serious role. but he is a very, very -- you know, he has had steve jobs' ear, he's really been running the show behind the scenes for quite some time now. he is -- it's funny, tim cook is sort of an operations guy. he was a lifer at companies like compac and ibm before he came to apple. he really came to apple to manage inventory, make the trains run on time, and then he just really proved himself, and obviously took on much, much more responsibility. but there's nobody that knows this company better than steve jobs than tim cook. that's absolutely for sure. >> having said that, it's massive shoes to fill, now that he's got the ceo job. and part of steve jobs' brilliance was his personal marketeer for the whole company. and as an innovator. from what you're saying, it's not really the kind of thing that his successor is really that skilled at. will he have to learn that kind of ability, do you think, to go to these conferences once a year and excite the world the way steve jobs does? >> i don't think you can learn how to be steve jobs. steve jobs is singular. there will never be anybody like him. he is the closest thing the business world has to a super hero. i don't think anybody would deny that. in terms of the marketing flair, i don't think tim cook needs to have that, to steer the company in the right direction. i think with apple, it's about the products. and that's where the question of, you know, innovation, can he replace steve jobs in terms of innovation. the management structure at apple is actually pretty simple. there's a lot of people that report directly to steve jobs. there isn't a whole lot of dotted lines and mishmash. it's pretty direct there. it's also famously brutal. so the people that are there at the company are there for a reason. so i think that, you know, we can expect more great things from apple. but there's no question that apple is steve jobs. and this company is about to change. >> pretty dramatically i would imagine. tim cook presumably will have a salary slightly higher than steve jobs' $1 a year, what he took for the last decade. >> that's true. but apple can afford it. don't forget, this is a company that recently surpassed exxonmobil not too long ago. i don't think the salary will be a question. i think the biggest question by far is the innovation question. you know, don't forget that the story with steve jobs, you know, apple was almost on its last legs when steve jobs returned to take the helm. people forget just how bad apple was doing at that time. and steve jobs came back, and not only brought the company back, but really has truly transformed five or six entire industries. if you think about it. computers, obviously, phones, movies, music. i mean, these industries have been literally head-to-toe transformed because of what apple's done. if you think about, this is a company that has 50,000 employees, and still is growing at 60% a year, it's just amazing what he's done. it's a very, very, very hard act to follow. but tim cook has long been understood by the market, by the company, as the guy to take over. i think as we've all known, you know, this was going to happen at some point, given the issues that have been, you know, given his health issues. >> would you say that steve jobs could lay claim to being the greatest businessman america's ever produced? >> i think that's possible. i think he's been called that by jack welch and other famous ceos who previously had that title. i think that that would not be an overstatement. >> seeing after-hours trading, in apple, showing 5% down and falling pretty rapidly, would you expect tomorrow, when there are bigger volumes at stake, that this will continue as a pattern? there will be kickback. >> i think earlier this winter he came and said he was taking medical leave, the stock took an instant hit. and also, let's not forget how volatile the stock has been lately. the market in general has been lately. i think we can expect a reaction. but that said, again, i think that the market is prepared -- the market has gotten to know tim cook, gotten comfortable with tim cook, by that i mean, investors. this is not entirely a huge surprise. i mean, i think the timing of it is a surprise. but there's never been a question as to who is going to succeed steve jobs when he ultimately stands aside, which we've known is a very likely scenario, just because of his health concerns. >> also, tim cook has been there since the turn of the century. and stock has risen 70% since he's been there. i would imagine internally they'll be panicking a lot less. leigh gallagher, thank you very much. >> thank you. >> jim spellman is in the bahamas. and chad myers watching the storms in the hurricane center. jim, looking pretty rough there now. what is the latest? >> reporter: yeah, piers, the wind has really been picking up over the last couple of hours. now it's been met by rain. it's just been coming in in bands here off the caribbean. everybody here is doing their best to get prepared. they know this storm is going to be big, powerful, it's the real thing, piers, and they're really getting prepared as best they can. >> chad, obviously the bigger concern outside of the bahamas is where this goes next. what intelligence do we have right now on the direction of irene? >> waiting for that right-hand turn that we always forecast. and if it doesn't turn to the right in time, could even make a little bit of run at florida, or even for that matter the carolinas. the problem is going to be when it goes past north carolina and makes a run at the northeast. this could literally make a run into long island, maybe even toward boston. can you imagine 85-mile-per-hour storm in boston? or on long island? or a little bit of a turn to the left and this goes all the way into new york city. 85 miles per hour in the city of new york, that would be an ugly, ugly weekend. piers? >> and chad, obviously i'm not a native of these parts, so how unusual is it that the east coast would be threatened with a hurricane of this magnitude? >> we get one about every three years. we've been in a drought, honestly. people are probably not ready for this because it's been such a hurricane drought over the past five years. the biggest hurricanes we've had have all been in the gulf of mexico. katrina and rita and ike. but this, this could be a category 2 hurricane, 100 miles per hour right over, i'd say providence, rhode island. that's the potential. that's the potential. the last time that happened was 1991 with bob. >> wow. back to you, jim. when you're in the eye of these things, as you are right now, what is the best advice do you think for people who live in a place that's been hit by a hurricane? what should they really be doing? >> well, you know, as chad mentioned, when there's a hurricane drought, i think people become complacent and ignore what people say. the main thing you can do is get the heck away from it. and that's what most of the tourists here in the bahamas have done. the cruise ships pulled out overnight, the airport closed a few hours ago, tourists got out of here. that's the best thing you can do now. now, here in the bahamas, this island, the new providence, is only about 20 miles long. there's nowhere to go to outrun the storm. so the people here are battening down the hatches, they get plywood and food and water in and ride it out. but i would highly recommend anyone to listen to what the authorities say, don't try to ride it out if you have any kind of option. >> well, thanks, jim, obviously, the bahamas is a beautiful place. lovely people. our thoughts are with the people there, and hope it goes okay for them. thanks to you and chad. when we come back, right to libya and the latest from dan rivers in tripoli. met an old man at the top asked him if he had a secret and the old man stopped and thought and said: free 'cause that's how it ought to be my brother credit 'cause you'll need a loan for one thing or another score 'cause they break it down to one simple number that you can use dot to take a break because the name is kinda long com in honor of the internet that it's on put it all together at the end of the song it gives you freecreditscore-dot-com, and i'm gone... offer applies with enrollment in freecreditscore.com [ male announcer ] this is what it's like getting an amazing discount on a hotel with travelocity's top secret hotels. the easy way to get unpublished discounts of up to 55% off top hotels. harpist not included. ♪ the $2.5 million bounty on the head of moammar gadhafi tonight, the clock ticking to the end of his regime. dan rivers is there in tripoli and joins me now. dan, what is the latest? tell me about this bounty. >> reporter: this has been confirmed to me that they are offering 1.7 million denars, that number is symbolic. this revolution started on the 17th of february, and they are offering this money to try and encourage someone to give up colonel gadhafi. they're also offering an amnesty for anyone who will turn him in, who are currently loyal to him. we've come in from the mountains today, into tripoli, where these rebels surged a few days ago from in town. we drove in through the west of the coastal area here, through zawiya to tripoli. we were ushered into a briefing with the rebels where they acknowledged that large parts of the southern side of tripoli remain very dangerous and very volatile. anything south of the ring roads here is extremely dangerous. they say there are pockets of resistance and snipers loyal to gadhafi there which are really causing them problems. there's a slight change in the picture that we've been led to believe that they control 80% or 90% of the city. i think that's a little overly optimistic at the moment. certainly where we are now, just near the port here now, you can hear a lot of celebratory gunfire. this area seems to be fairly secure as the rebels are now driving around, loosing off magazines to celebrate what they think is an inevitable victory. >> obviously there's a huge bounty, never mind financial, just on being a rebel that could get gadhafi personally. is there a huge kind of manhunt going on? how would you describe the atmosphere to find him? >> reporter: oh, yeah, absolutely. febrile, i suppose, is the best word. when we were in this briefing, a bunch of these rebels all ran out and jumped into their trucks claiming they were going off on a secret mission to capture a senior person who may or may not have been gadhafi, they thought. turns out it wasn't. but it's fairly -- it feels fairly chaotic the way they are behaving, the rebels, from what i've seen. there's a lot of kind of running around in these pickup trucks, some of which have antiaircraft guns mounted on them. you know, break-neck speed. we've seen a lot of these cars sort of doing doughnuts down in green square, or martyr square as they're calling it now behind me, you know, in celebration. they don't give the impression of being particularly disciplined. and obviously the big question is, where is gadhafi, is he still in tripoli. rumors that he might be south near the airport where one of my colleagues, arwa damon, is still holed up amid that intense fighting. but frankly, no one really knows at the moment. >> now, that is the big question. dan rivers, thank you very much indeed. as the battle rages in tripoli, opposition forces are making plans for post-gadhafi libya. a member of the family who has been in close touch with the rebels. joins me exclusively now. prince, thank you very much for joining me. i spoke to your brother yesterday. obviously a very jubilant time for you, for your family, and indeed for libya. what is your reaction to what you're se