Trump says Tim Cook told him that Apple will make a huge investment in the U.S.
During a rally held in Washington D.C. to celebrate Monday's inauguration, Presodent-elect Donald Trump had a meeting with Apple CEO Tim Cook. According to Trump, Cook told the incoming president that Apple will make a massive investment in the U.S. because of Trump's big election win. Cook and Apple have joined other tech firms and their CEOs in a bid to show their support for the president after failing to do so during his first term. Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon's Jeff Bezos, and Alphabet/Google CEO Sundar Pichai have all recently met with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida.
Trump's comments about Apple investing in America seemed similar to a comment he made in July 2017 during his first term as president. Trump said at the time that Apple would be building "three big plants, beautiful plants." There must have been some mix-up in communications between Cook and Trump because Apple later said that no such project had been discussed with the president. Apple later said that it had no such plans to built these factories.
It would be easy to dismiss Trump's comments about Cook and Apple making a huge investment in the U.S. in light of what happened last time. Additionally, Apple did not comment on Trump's statement according to Fox Business News. But things do feel different this time around with tech leaders apparently interested in working with Trump. And while Apple and its CEO wouldn't seem to have much in common with Trump, both of them have been able to get along. During the president's first term in office, Cook sat on the American Workforce Policy Advisory Board."
Cozying up to the president is also good business for Apple. During the peak of the U.S.-China trade war during Trump's initial four years in The White House, Apple's most important product, the iPhone, managed to escape getting hit by tariffs.
Giant American tech firms and their executives are either getting close to Trump in order to stay on his good side for self preservation, or because they sense that this time something good could come from working together with the Trump administration.
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