Tim Cook dinner and Donald Trump in a gathering on the White Home in 2018 — picture credit score: Apple
Their private relationship has not all the time helped “Tim Apple”, however Tim Cook dinner has been extra profitable in working with Trump than most.
President Trump has beforehand backed the FBI in opposition to Apple over what he known as overseas apps, and famously forgot Cook dinner’s identify, however total Apple seems to have been capable of profit below a Trump administration. The Wall Avenue Journal says that that is all the way down to a selected approach Cook dinner makes use of, alongside lobbying Trump personally.
“That’s why he’s a great executive, because he calls me and others don’t,” Trump stated in 2019.
Cook dinner each calls Trump and has meals with him. Reportedly, key to these communications is that Cook dinner makes them about one single level, one single concern, every time.
For instance, a 2017 change noticed Cook dinner persuade Trump to scale down his plans for tariffs, after telling him how this may improve iPhone costs and assist Samsung. Cook dinner will presumably have to do that once more — the incoming administration says it’ll improve tariffs, although the price is paid by the importers and handed to US shoppers.
Forward of the brand new administration, Cook dinner recommenced the connection by congratulating Trump, as virtually all enterprise leaders and overseas governments did. Nevertheless, Cook dinner may have saved the connection going through the Biden administration, as Trump has claimed that the 2 talked concerning the EU legal guidelines.
“Two hours ago, three hours ago, he [Cook] called me,” Trump stated on the PBD Podcast on October 17, 2024. “He said the European Union has just fined us $15 billion… Then on top of that, they got fined by the European Union another $2 billion.”
“Tim… I’m not going to let them take advantage of our companies — that won’t, you know, be happening,'” he says he continued.
In addition to the non-public lobbying by means of calls and meals, Cook dinner has additionally publicly labored with Trump. In 2019, he gave the President the primary 2019 Mac Professional to be made in Austin, Texas, following a tour of the plant.
