Trump hosts Apple chief at Mar-a-Lago as big tech leaders reach out
Donald Trump has hosted Apple chief executive Tim Cook for a Friday evening dinner at the US President-elect’s Mar-a-Lago resort, sources said.
Mr 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 American leader after choppy relations with Mr Trump during his first term.
Mr Trump has said he has spoken with Mr Cook about the company’s long-running tax battles with the European Union.
The meeting comes less than two months after Mr Trump said he spoke to Mr Cook by phone, and soon after Apple lost its last appeal in a dispute with the EU over $13.5bn (£10.7bn) in back taxes to Ireland.
“He said the European Union has just fined us $15bn,” Mr Trump recalled of his conversation with Mr Cook, in an October interview with podcaster Patrick Bet-David. “Then on top of that they got fined by the European Union another $2bn.”
The decision by the EU’s top court was the finale to a dispute that centred on sweetheart deals that Dublin was offering to attract multi-national 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.
Mr Trump’s transition team and Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment about his dinner with Mr Cook.
OpenAI chief Mr Altman is planning to make a £791,000 personal donation to Mr Trump’s inauguration fund, the company confirmed.
Amazon and Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, confirmed this week they had each donated $1m (£792,393) to Mr Trump’s inaugural fund.
During his first term, Mr Trump criticised Amazon and railed against the political coverage at The Washington Post, which Mr Bezos owns.
Meanwhile, Mr Bezos had criticised some of Mr Trump’s past rhetoric. In 2019, Amazon also argued in a court case that Mr Trump’s bias against the company harmed its chances of winning a £7.9bn Pentagon contract.
More recently, Mr 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 Mr Trump’s second term while also endorsing the President-elect’s plans to cut regulations.
The donation from Meta came just weeks after Meta supremo Mr Zuckerberg met Mr Trump privately at Mar-a-Lago.
During the 2024 campaign, Mr Zuckerberg did not endorse a candidate for president, but voiced a more positive stance toward Mr Trump.
Earlier this year, he praised Mr Trump’s response to his first assassination attempt.
Associated Press