That's not really true. You can't just decide to be an Irish company if you have no presence in Ireland. The wave of corporate inversions in the U.S. was accompanied by lots of companies moving their headquarters (and their top executives) to Switzerland, the U.K., etc.

Tim Cook doesn't need to live in Ireland to benefit from its tax code.

Income from capital gains is taxed at the rate of where the person lives. Tim Cook is a great example: it was reported that one of his recent bonuses was taxed at 50%.

Not that many people, even ones who make a lot of money, can take advantage of various tax avoidance measures. (That’s why e.g. getting rid of the preferential treatment of capital gains would raise less tax money than getting rid of the mortgage interest deduction.) CEOs mostly cannot, unless they run investment companies.

My point is that Apple can take advantage of Ireland for tax purposes but Tim Cook doesn’t need to live in Ireland. The corporation enjoys benefits not conferred to people. This is why there is consternation and conflict around Apple’s repatriation of capital.