President Donald Trump held his first White House state dinner tonight since moving into the Oval Office, and Apple CEO Tim Cook was on the guest list.
The left-leaning Cook might have felt very much in the minority. Trump didn’t invite a single Democratic member of Congress to the dinner, but arch-conservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch was in attendance.
The iPhone and other major tech products are safe from Trump’s brewing trade war with China.
On Tuesday, the office of the U.S. Trade Representative revealed that it was slapping 25 percent tariffs on 1,300 products coming from China related to technology, transport and medical products. iPhone components were exempt from the list, but other products like magnetic hard drives and flat-panel television sets were hit hard.
U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, Steve Mnuchin, paid a visit to Apple’s new spaceship campus in Cupertino today.
Mnuchin got a tour of Apple Park accompanied by Tim Cook. The Ape CEO has a history of both working against and with Donald Trump’s administration, and in the duo’s photo that was tweeted this afternoon, it doesn’t look like Tim is particularily stoked.
Check out the full tweet:
Tim Cook is the “Donald Trump of the music industry,” claims outspoken Guns N’ Roses frontman Axl Rose.
There’s no further explanation from Rose, who posted the message on Twitter. It’s probably not meant as a compliment, though. Rose previously criticized Trump for appointing controversial ex-Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions as his attorney general and accusing the president of “whining.”
During last night’s State of the Union address, President Donald Trump singled out Apple as a company that benefitted from Republican tax cuts — and is now giving back as a result.
“Since we passed tax cuts, roughly 3 million workers have already gotten tax cut bonuses — many of them thousands of dollars per worker,” Trump said. “Apple has just announced it plans to invest a total of $350 billion in America, and hire another 20,000 workers. This is our new American moment. There has never been a better time to start living the American Dream.”
Apple ramped up its lobbying spend in 2017, shelling out $7 million to battle many of the regulations and proposed new laws issued by the Trump administration.
Under Tim Cook, amount spent by Apple on lobbying efforts has more than doubled. However, while last year’s figure was a personal record for the company, it is less than many other big tech giants spent. During the same period, Google spent $18 million on lobbying efforts, while Amazon spent $12.8 million, and Facebook spent $11.5 million.
This week on a very spicy edition of The CultCast: Tim Cook is thrilled with the new U.S. tax overhaul, and has some exciting plans to spend Apple’s massive fortune. Plus: Forget other smart speakers — we’ll tell you why we’re now even more excited for HomePod. And stick around for our favorite movies, shows and sausages in an all-new, very weird “What We’re Into!”
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Tim Cook finally earned some praise from long-time foe Donald Trump today, thanks to Apple’s plan to contribute $350 billion to the U.S. economy over the next five years.
Trump went so far as to call Tim Cook “a great guy” during a speech at a factory in Pennsylvania today while talking about Apple’s investment into the U.S.
Apple’s not giving up on fighting what it considers to be the good fight when it comes to immigration. On Thursday, a coalition of businesses including Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and others urged President Trump not to abandon a program that allows the spouses of high-skilled immigrants to work in the U.S. while they are in the process of seeking permanent residence.
The initiative was introduced by President Barack Obama in 2015, but could be abandoned by the Trump administration as part of its crackdown on immigration.
President Donald Trump’s new tax law is doing great things for Apple employees’ wallets.
Apple told employees today that it plans to give all of them $2,500 worth of restricted stock, thanks to the revised tax law that goes into effect this year.
Apple CEO Tim Cook and Koch Industries CEO Charles Koch are usually on opposite ends of the political spectrum, but the two business titans are coming together to support a common cause: The Dreamers.
In a rare opinion piece authored by Cook and Koch, the two implore Congress to act now so that this holiday season isn’t the last one in the United States for 690,000 of our neighbors.
In a shocking change to internet protocols in the US, the Federal Communications Commission has voted to repeal net neutrality.
The FCC voted to repeal the landmark rules that protect consumers from being charged special prices for accessing certain parts of the internet. By scraping the neutrality regulations, The FCC just opened the doorway for Internet service providers to block websites or make users pay more to get some content.
Apple has added its name to a letter of support for a legal challenge to President Trump’s attempts to end DACA, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program which protects undocumented immigrants who were brought into the U.S. when they were minors.
Other tech companies to sign the brief include IBM, Google, Lyft, Microsoft, Twitter, and others.
Aspects of Steve Jobs’ personality strike former Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak as, “very Trumpish,” Woz reportedly told an audience Tuesday night at Carnegie Music Hall as part of the American Middle East Institute’s 10th Conference.
Specifically, Woz seems to have been referring to Jobs cheating Woz out of some of the money for an early project the two collaborated on at Atari, his failure to listen, and tendency to say nasty things to people.
The highest court in the U.S. is debating whether or not it should hear an appeal from Apple on a class-action lawsuit that it lost in a lower court.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court asked the Trump administration’s Justice Department for its opinion on the case. Apple is accused of charging illegally high commissions on the sale of apps in its App Store, but the group suing Apple isn’t developers, it’s a bunch of consumers who purchased the apps.
Tim Cook may not always have seen eye to eye with President Donald Trump, but if a Trump policy could help push Apple toward a trillion dollar market cap that would surely help undo some of the bad blood.
This is exactly the scenario presented by analysts at RBC Capital Markets, who claim that Apple would stand to gain in a big way from the Trump administration’s planned U.S. tax changes — particularly tax deduction caps for interest expenses, tax rates on foreign profits, and a lowered repatriation tax.
As part of his plans for cutting business rates, President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans have proposed a new tax that could have a big impact on Silicon Valley tech giants including Apple.
The proposal — designed to stop companies from shifting their profits to overseas tax havens — calls for “rules to protect the U.S. tax base by taxing at a reduced rate and on a global basis the foreign profits of U.S. multinational corporations.”
Apple CEO Tim Cook sent out a new letter this morning pledging to help fight for the protection of his employees who are now at risk of being deported.
The letter comes just hours after Donald Trump’s administration revealed plans to officially rescind Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) in the next six months. If Trump’s plan goes through, hundreds of Apple employees who are Dreamers could be forced out of the country. In his email, Cook says he’ll work with members of Congress from both parties to ensure that doesn’t happen.
Read Tim’s inspiring note to employees:
Over the weekend, Tim Cook shared a post on Twitter, showing his support for the 250 of his Apple colleagues who entered the United States illegally as children — who currently benefit from Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) protection. Cook described how these employees, “deserve our respect as equals.”
His tweet comes as President Donald Trump is reportedly set to scrap the legal protections offered under the DACA program, which keeps close to 800,000 young men and women safe from deportation.
Tim Cook has joined the CEOs of Microsoft, Amazon, HP, Google, and others in signing a letter from immigration reform group FWD.us.
The letter asks that President Donald Trump keep in place legal protection under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program for undocumented immigrants who arrived in the United States as children. Without this protection, they could be subject to deportation.
Apple has finally broken its silence on the argument for net neutrality today by sending the FCC its comments on whether carriers and internet service providers should be able to provide fast lanes for companies that pay extra.
As a company that sells content through its online stores and services, Apple warned the Trump administration to not roll back protections. The company didn’t take a stance on whether the FCC should be able to protect the Internet like a utility, but it urged FCC Chairman Ajit Pai to keep the current rules in place.
Apple CEO Tim Cook revealed to employees in an email this week that Apple will make $2 million worth of donations to organizations “who work to rid our country of hate.”
The donations come as a response to the tragic events of Charlottesville which Cook told employees have been deeply troubling for him personally. Cook, who has first hand experience with the devastating impacts of the KKK, took aim at President Donald Trump in his letter for supporting the white supremacists and says that Apple plans to play an important role in bringing about positive change.
U.S. President Donald Trump revealed today on Twitter that he is reversing former President Barack Obama’s decision to allow transgender men and women to serve in the military. And he’s already drawing tons of fire from Silicon Valley.
Apple CEO took to Trump’s favorite social network to blast the decision saying it’s discrimination. Other tech icons are joining his side too with their voices of descent for the president’s actions.
Apple plans to build new manufacturing plants in the United States, according to President Donald Trump.
In a recent interview, Trump claimed Apple CEO Tim Cook promised to help revitalize American manufacturing by building “three big plants, beautiful plants.” Trump didn’t say what the plants would be used for or where they would be located. But he swears they’re coming.
Foxconn, Apple’s largest manufacturing partner, could this week announce its plans to open new manufacturing facilities in the U.S.
Sources say the Chinese company could hold an event in Washington, D.C. to announce new electronics plants in Detroit and Wisconsin — but it’s not yet clear whether those plants will be making goods for Apple.