Creating new technologies and making existing ones better is not the only thing that big tech companies care about. They must also know how to navigate the political arena to be on good terms with the current administration. Apple is one of the firms that has best understood this, and now its CEO has donated $1 million to Donald Trump’s inauguration fund.
Apple’s Tim Cook joins list of tech CEOs donating to Trump’s inauguration fund
Donald Trump’s inauguration will take place on January 20. For weeks now, top executives of big tech companies have been calling and meeting with the new president-elect of the United States to strengthen ties or even smooth things over. Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, had some meetings with Trump during his first term and even received praise from him. You could say that the relationship between Cook and Trump has been good for several years. On the other hand, Trump has been critical of companies such as Google.
Now, Apple’s CEO has joined the list of those who donated to Trump’s inauguration fund. According to a report by Axios, Tim Cook will “personally” contribute $1 million soon. Both personalities already had a meeting last month at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago mansion in Florida. Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and head of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), was also present.
Apple could gain some notable benefits from Tim Cook’s positive relationship with Trump. Before the last presidential election, the CEO of the company discussed with Trump the strict regulatory issue in the EU. The 47th president of the US reportedly assured Cook at the time that he would not allow the European Commission to “take advantage” of American companies.
Other companies have had to smooth things over with the new US president
In December last year, Trump met with Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google. Earlier in November, he met with Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta. Both companies had yet to smooth things over with the president-elect after a rocky relationship. During his presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly accused Google of promoting negative news about him and hiding positive ones. Months earlier, he referred to Facebook as “the enemy of the people.” Both have already donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund. Sam Altman of OpenAI also did it.
Meta even restructured its policy department to get along better with the new administration. Joel Kaplan, who has close ties to both Trump and JD Vance, replaced Nick Clegg as the office’s head.
2025-01-05 15:06:36