Apple Co-Founder Wozniak Wants to Be Aussie Citizen, AFR Says

Apple Inc. (AAPL) co-founder Steve Wozniak wants to become an Australian citizen and lists the government’s planned national broadband network as one of the factors behind his decision, the Australian Financial Review reported.

Wozniak, who built the first Apple computer with Steve Jobs and co-founded the company with him in 1976, told the newspaper he supports the roll-out of the mainly fiber-optic network and had discussed the project with Communications Minister Stephen Conroy.

“I support it very much,” the Financial Review cited Wozniak, in Australia for the launch of the iPhone 5 and to speak at business forums, as saying in an interview. “It’s one of the reasons why I actually like this country and want to become a citizen.”

Wozniak told a local radio station in Brisbane that he was “underway to become an Australian citizen,” according to the report. “It turns out I can keep my American citizenship,” he told Brisbane’s 4BC breakfast radio, the newspaper said. “I intend to call myself an Australian and feel an Australian, and study the history and become as much of a real citizen here as I can.”

Wozniak is chief scientist at Fusion-io Inc. (FIO), a Salt Lake City-based maker of flash-memory technology.

To contact the reporter on this story: Edward Johnson in Sydney at ejohnson28@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Edward Johnson at ejohnson28@bloomberg.net

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Steve Wozniak

Norman Ng/Bloomberg

Stephen "Steve" Wozniak, co-founder of Apple Inc., speaks on "Innovation and Creativity in the 21st Century," in Singapore.

Stephen "Steve" Wozniak, co-founder of Apple Inc., speaks on "Innovation and Creativity in the 21st Century," in Singapore. Photographer: Norman Ng/Bloomberg