Tech leaders learn how to deal with Trump from Tim Cook who met with 47 for dinner Friday
Tim Cook played a big role at times during the first Trump administration. During the height of the U.S.-China trade war when the once and future president was considering imposing tariffs on the iPhone, Apple's CEO met with him and explained how good tariffs on the iPhone would be for Samsung's U.S. business. The president backed off placing an import tax on iPhone units shipped to the states from China and eventually, the U.S. and China negotiated a settlement.
In 2017, Trump said that he was told by Cook that the company would build "three big plants, beautiful plants" in the U.S. and hoped that they would be Apple's best plants ever "even if it’s only a foot bigger than some place in China." Those plants never were built and Apple never acknowledged that its CEO told Trump that new U.S. factories were coming. And who could forget the time that the president referred to Cook as Tim Apple. It should be noted that the official White House transcript was changed to make it appear that the gaffe never happened.
Cook was quick to congratulate Donald Trump after he stamped his return ticket to the Oval Office and on Friday night the president-elect hosted Cook for a dinner at Mar-a-Lago. Cook isn't the only tech leader to go out of their way to get on Trump's good side. Recently Mark Zuckerberg's Meta and Jeff Bezos' Amazon donated $1 million each to be used to help cover the cost of Trump's second inauguration. Open AI's Sam Altman left a personal $1 million donation. What many tech executives have learned about Trump is that when it comes time to get on Trump's good side, flattery and money often work.
Tim Cook and President Donald Trump at a tech summit held during Trump's first term. | Imager credit-Unknown
Some of the conversation at the Mar-a-Lago dinner might deal with Apple's dispute with the EU over the $14.34 billion in back taxes that Ireland says Apple owes it. Cook spoke with Trump two months ago and discussed how the EU ruled against Apple. Whether Cook was hoping that Trump might intervene once he takes office isn't clear but the Apple executive has always been able to land on Trump's good side. This is something that Zuckerberg and Bezos are just learning.
During Trump's first term, he criticized Bezos because of the way the president was covered in The Washington Post, owned by Bezos. While Zuckerberg didn't endorse any candidate for president this year, he did praise Trump for how he reacted to the first assassination attempt against him.
Massaging Trump's ego is always good for a company's business and no one does this better than Tim Cook. How far Friday's dinner goes is something we might not find out for some time.
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