When Trump entered office in early 2017, Cupertino was on high alert. Executives were far more concerned about Trump than they ever were about Xi Jinping. Beijing’s ruler was a despot, sure, but he was a rational actor whose interests, broadly speaking, neatly aligned with Apple’s. Neither Beijing nor Cupertino wanted iPhone product to be shifted out of China. But that’s precisely what Trump wanted. “Tim, unless you start building your plants in this country, I won’t consider my administration an economic success,” Trump said he told the Apple CEO, in July 2017. Cook, according to Trump, had promised Apple would build “three big plants, beautiful plants.” Clearly understanding the risks of the insurgent presidency, Cook made a point of calling Trump, even visiting the president every four to six weeks. “Cook, this big southerner, was calling Trump all the time—he was nice to him,” says Margaret O’Mara, tech historian and author The Code. “He was so savvy navigating the broader currents of global trade.”
His diplomatic overtures climaxed in November 2019 when Cook personally gave President Trump a tour of a Texas factory churning out Apple’s Pro lineup of Macs. After the event, Trump tweeted: “Today I opened a major Apple Manufacturing plan in Texas that will bring high paying jobs back to America.” The tweet was patently false. The owner of the plant was contract manufacturer Flex, not Apple; it had been assembling Macs for six years; and rather than representing some milestone, the factory had been demonstrating just how difficult it was to make computers in America.
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