Trump hosts Apple CEO as large tech leaders proceed outreach to president-elect

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Donald Trump hosted Apple CEO Tim Cook dinner for a Friday night dinner on the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago resort, stories Bloomberg. 

Donald Trump hosted Apple CEO Tim Cook dinner for a Friday night meal on the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago resort(AFP )

Cook dinner is the newest in a line of high-profile tech executives who’ve tried to make amends with the brand new president following tense interactions with Trump throughout his first time period, together with Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Mark Zuckerberg of Meta, and Sam Altman of OpenAI.

Trump claims to have mentioned the corporate’s ongoing tax disputes with the EU with Cook dinner.

The assembly takes place lower than two months after Trump claimed to have had a telephone dialog with Cook dinner and shortly after Apple misplaced its last attraction in a dispute with the EU over unpaid taxes to Eire of 13 billion euros ($14.34 billion, in line with Bloomberg.

In an October interview with podcaster Patrick Wager-David, Trump recounted his chat with Cook dinner: “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.”

The EU highest courtroom’s ruling was the end result of a battle primarily based on sweetheart offers Dublin was making to entice multinational firms with low tax charges all through the 27-nation union. In 2016, the European Fee declared that Eire had illegally given Apple assist that Eire wanted to repay.

Neither representatives for Trump nor Apple instantly responded to requests for remark.

Friday’s dinner is on the heels of different tech leaders touring to Palm Seaside to talk with Trump: a November dinner with Meta Platforms Inc.’s Mark Zuckerberg and a gathering with Alphabet Inc.’s Sundar Pichai on Thursday. Trump additionally mentioned he plans to fulfill with the billionaire founding father of Amazon.com Inc. Jeff Bezos subsequent week.

Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, introduced Friday that he intends to personally donate $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund. This Monday, Amazon and Fb and Instagram mum or dad firm Meta introduced that that they had every contributed $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund.

Trump attacked Bezos’s firm, Amazon, and the political protection at The Washington Submit all through his first time period. Bezos, nonetheless, has taken problem with a few of Trump’s earlier statements. Amazon additionally claimed in a 2019 lawsuit that Trump’s anti-business sentiment damage the corporate’s prospects of touchdown a $10 billion Pentagon contract.

Trump’s insurance policies and rhetoric might conflict with Apple’s public positions, however the firm has had an antagonistic relationship with President Joe Biden’s administration. Apple was sued by the Justice Division in an antitrust case that may drag on for years, and mounting regulatory scrutiny world wide is threatening its operations.

Bezos has adopted a extra accommodative stance in more moderen instances. He endorsed the president-elect’s intentions to cut back rules and expressed optimism about Trump’s second time period final week at The New York Occasions’ DealBook Summit in New York.

Only some weeks after Meta CEO Zuckerberg had a non-public assembly with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, Meta made the present.

Zuckerberg expressed a extra beneficial opinion of Trump all through the 2024 marketing campaign, though he didn’t assist any presidential contender. He recommended Trump’s response to his preliminary assassination try earlier this yr.

Trump for his second time period is once more vowing to impose sweeping new tariffs, together with a 10-20% across-the-board tariffs on all international items and levies as excessive as 60% on Chinese language merchandise. The overwhelming majority of Apple’s iPhones are made in China, at the same time as the corporate has sought to shift manufacturing to different areas in recent times.

“We look forward to engaging with you and your administration to help ensure that the United States continues to lead with and be fuelled by ingenuity, innovation, and creativity,” the CEO of Apple mentioned on social media instantly after Trump’s election victory in November.

Prior to now, Trump has chastised Apple for ignoring calls for from legislation enforcement to create a backdoor into the working system of its telephones that will allow a consumer to entry information with out a password. Throughout his marketing campaign, Trump urged Apple to assist federal authorities crack the telephones of two people who’re suspected of planning homicide makes an attempt towards him.

Neither Cook dinner nor Apple, which doesn’t have a political motion committee, donated on the federal stage within the 2024 election cycle, Federal Election Fee data present. Workers of Apple gave $4.6 million, with Democratic candidates receiving 94.8% of that quantity, in line with OpenSecrets.