Trump hosts Apple CEO at Mar-a-Lago as big tech leaders continue outreach to president-elect
Advertisement
Read this article for free:
or
Already have an account? Log in here »
To continue reading, please subscribe:
Digital Subscription
One year of digital access for only $205*
- Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
- Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
- Access News Break, our award-winning app
- Play interactive puzzles
*First annual payment billed as $205.00 + GST for one year. This annual subscription will automatically renew at $233.00 + GST every 52 weeks (10% off the regular annual price of $259.35). Offer available to new and qualified returning subscribers only. Cancel any time.
To continue reading, please subscribe:
Add Free Press access to your Brandon Sun subscription for only an additional
$1 for the first 4 weeks*
- Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
- Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
- Access News Break, our award-winning app
- Play interactive puzzles
*Your next Brandon Sun subscription payment will increase by $1.00 and you will be charged $17.95 plus GST for four weeks. After four weeks, your payment will increase to $24.95 plus GST every four weeks.
Read unlimited articles for free today:
or
Already have an account? Log in here »
Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 13/12/2024 (657 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Donald Trump hosted Apple CEO Tim Cook for a Friday evening dinner at the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago resort, according to a person familiar with the matter who was not authorized to comment publicly.
Cook is the latest in a string of big tech leaders — including OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos — who have sought to improve their standing with the incoming president after choppy relations with Trump during his first term.
Trump has said he has spoken with Cook about the company’s long-running tax battles with the European Union.
The meeting comes less than two months after Trump said he spoke to Cook by phone, and soon after Apple lost its last appeal in a dispute with the EU over 13 billion euros ($14.34 billion) in back taxes to Ireland.
“He said the European Union has just fined us $15 billion,” Trump recalled of his conversation with Cook, in an October interview with podcaster Patrick Bet-David. “Then on top of that they got fined by the European Union another $2 billion.”
The decision by the EU top court was the finale to a dispute that centered on sweetheart deals that Dublin was offering to attract multinational businesses with minimal taxes across the 27-nation bloc. The European Commission in 2016 ruled that Ireland granted Apple unlawful aid that Ireland was required to recover.
Trump’s transition team and Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment about his dinner with Cook.
OpenAI CEO Altman is planning to make a $1 million personal donation to Trump’s inauguration fund, the company confirmed Friday. Amazon and Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, confirmed this week they had each donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund.
During his first term, Trump criticized Amazon and railed against the political coverage at The Washington Post, which Bezos owns. Meanwhile, Bezos had criticized some of Trump’s past rhetoric. In 2019, Amazon also argued in a court case that Trump’s bias against the company harmed its chances of winning a $10 billion Pentagon contract.
More recently, Bezos has struck a more conciliatory tone. Last week, he said at The New York Times’ DealBook Summit in New York that he was “optimistic” about Trump’s second term while also endorsing president-elect’s plans to cut regulations.
The donation from Meta came just weeks after Meta CEO Zuckerberg met with Trump privately at Mar-a-Lago.
During the 2024 campaign, Zuckerberg did not endorse a candidate for president, but voiced a more positive stance toward Trump. Earlier this year, he praised Trump’s response to his first assassination attempt.
