Apple CEO Tim Cook laughs with President Donald Trump during a meeting at the White House on March 6, 2019 in Washington.
Leah Millis | Reuters
President Donald Trump praised Tim Cook and called on him to speak out in a lengthy post on Truth Social on Tuesday. apple The CEO was an “incredible person” and boasted that Cook turned to him when he needed help.
“For me, it started with a phone call from Tim at the beginning of my first term,” Trump wrote. “He had a pretty big problem, and only I, the president, could solve it.”
Trump continued: “When I got the call, I thought, wow, this is Tim Apple (Cook) calling me, that’s amazing. I was so impressed with myself that the head of Apple called me and said, ‘kiss my ass.'”
Apple representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Trump’s Truth Social post.
The post is emblematic of the relationship dynamics in the White House under Trump. Business leaders have sometimes been willing to cajole the president to further their own interests.
Daniel Weiner, director of elections and government programs at the Brennan Center for Justice, said Trump’s post was a take on an “overtly transactional, overtly individualistic approach to governance.”
“The idea is that CEOs of powerful companies are expected to call him and pay their respects and do favors in return,” Weiner said. “This may be the way governance has actually happened at various points in our history, but it’s certainly never been ideal. And now it’s kind of celebrated as an idea.”
Cook, who is stepping down after nearly 15 years in office, has played an especially effective role in running the administration. During Trump’s first and second terms, he directly challenged Trump to set policy on taxes, tariffs and other issues affecting the iPhone maker.
Overtures often went well. Last year, Cook secured an exemption from President Trump’s sweeping tariffs on cell phones, computers and chips that are critical to Apple’s bottom line. Trump acknowledged that he “cooperated with Tim Cook” on the move, but denied that the White House gave any favors to benefit specific companies.
“During my five years as President, Tim called me, never too many times, and I helped him whenever I could,” Trump wrote on Tuesday. “After a few years (sic) and three or four big helpings, I started telling people, anyone who would listen, that this guy was a great manager and leader.”
In some cases, Mr. Cook appealed to Mr. Trump, not just by phone. In August, when Apple announced an additional $100 billion commitment to U.S. manufacturing, he presented Trump with a 24-carat gold and glass statue engraved with the words “Made in the USA.”
John Tarnas, currently senior vice president of hardware engineering, will join Apple’s executive team on September 1, and Cook will assume the role of executive chairman. Apple has signaled it will continue to capitalize on Cook’s skill with dealing with politicians.
“Mr. Cook will support certain aspects of the company, including working with policymakers around the world,” Apple said in a press release.
Technology makes you feel at home
It gave Trump an unfiltered insight into how Cook gained support while other Silicon Valley leaders followed similar strategies.
technology company executives Amazonapple, google and Meta They had dined with President Trump during his first and second administrations. They also donated millions of dollars to the president’s inaugural fund and the president’s planned $300 million White House banquet hall.
CEO Elon Musk is tesla SpaceX spent more than $250 million to bring Trump back to the White House. He also took on the role of leading the Department of Government Efficiency, the Trump administration’s effort to reduce federal government capacity.
Musk, the world’s richest individual, remained close to the president despite public conflict over President Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.” He reportedly attended a White House dinner with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed in November and participated in a phone conversation between President Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in March.
A White House dinner with tech company CEOs last September drew scrutiny after attendees took turns praising Trump.
After the event, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg was taken on a hot mic to defer to President Trump about how he would structure the company’s spending plan, after Trump said the company would invest “at least $600 billion in the United States by 2028.”
A few minutes later, Zuckerberg said to Trump, who was sitting next to him.
Zuckerberg later addressed the hot mic moment in a post on the thread, saying it was confusing at the time as Meta was considering whether to invest “further” in the U.S. beyond 2028.
“I didn’t know what number he was asking about, so I only told him the low number until 2028, and then I explained it to him clearly,” Zuckerberg wrote.
On September 4, 2025, President Donald Trump gives a speech at a dinner in the White House’s official dining room, with, from left, White House AI and cryptocurrency czar David Sachs, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and First Lady Melania Trump.
Alex Wong | Getty Images
intel The company picked up a page from Cook’s strategy after President Trump urged the company’s CEO, Lipbu Tan, to resign following reports of Tan’s ties to China. After Tan visited the White House to meet him in person, Trump described him as “successful.”
The following week, the US government acquired a 10% stake in Intel through an investment of $8.9 billion. This was due to unpaid CHIPS Act subsidies and government bonuses for semiconductor manufacturing.
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI and a donor to Biden’s 2024 re-election campaign, is a former Trump critic who changed his tune in 2025. He posted to X in January of that year: “I’ve been watching @potus closely lately and my view of him has really changed.”
In late 2025, President Trump issued a sweeping executive order preempting many state-level regulations on AI, a major victory for Altman and other industry leaders who have pushed for such measures.
Altman has stood by Trump on several high-profile AI announcements, including his Stargate joint venture announced last year and another project in the United Arab Emirates.
The startup’s CEO, who maintains close ties to President Trump in his second term, also inked a deal with the Department of Defense to deploy advanced AI systems in classified environments, hours after OpenAI rival Anthropic was blacklisted by the administration.
OpenAI co-founder and president Greg Brockman reportedly donated $25 million to President Trump’s super PAC MAGA in September.
Amazon and its founder Jeff Bezos have stood by President Trump during his second term in the White House, a contrast to his first term, when he frequently attacked the e-tailer. The president has often hurled insults at Bezos, his ownership of the Washington Post, his tax records, and more.
The Trump administration praised Bezos, who took to the stage at Trump’s inauguration last year, for his decision to revamp the Post’s editorial page to focus on “individual freedom and free markets.”
Last April, President Trump said that Bezos, who stepped down as Amazon’s CEO in 2021, was “awesome” and a “good person” after Bezos assured Trump that the company had no plans to display tariff-related penalties on the company’s website.
Amazon has been criticized for investing $75 million in “Melania,” a documentary about the first lady produced by Amazon MGM Studios and Melania Trump. Lawmakers called the move “pay-to-play” and questioned why the company paid so much more than usual for a documentary film.
According to Variety, Amazon insisted it did nothing “fraudulent.”
media overture
Companies outside of Silicon Valley are also doing everything they can to win the president’s support.
last year, paramountCBS, which owns CBS, has agreed to a $16 million settlement with President Trump after the president filed a lawsuit alleging that an interview with Kamala Harris on “60 Minutes” was deceptively edited to make the then-Democratic presidential candidate look good.
At the time, some within Paramount saw the lawsuit as a potential obstacle to a sale to Skydance, which would require approval from the Trump administration.
Paramount said at the time that the lawsuit was “completely separate and unrelated to the Skydance deal.”
ABC was widely criticized after it agreed to pay Trump’s presidential library $15 million and $1 million in legal fees to settle a defamation lawsuit that Trump filed against the station and anchor George Stephanopoulos.
The lawsuit centers on an interview in which Anchor said juries found Trump “responsible for rape” in two lawsuits filed by columnist E. Jean Carroll.
In May 2023, Trump was found guilty of sexual assault and defamation of Carroll and ordered to pay her $5 million. In January 2024, Trump was found liable for defamation in another lawsuit brought by Carroll.
ABC and its parent company in 2025 disneyfurther sparked a firestorm by suspending late-night show host Jimmy Kimmel for speaking out after Charlie Kirk’s assassination.
ABC and Disney were under pressure from Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr, appointed by President Trump, and Nexstar Media Group, which owns ABC’s local affiliates.
Nexstar, which was in the process of merging with a rival called Tegna, which required FCC approval, threatened to steal Kimmel’s late-night show on stations it owned and effectively shut down the show in parts of the United States.
The White House disputed that Kimmel’s suspension was the result of pressure from the Trump administration.
Kimmel’s suspension ended after less than a week.
Nexstar’s proposed merger with Tegna was approved by the FCC, but the deal was put on hold by a federal judge last week.
Correction: This article has been corrected to reflect that the White House AI and Cryptocurrency Czar is David Sachs. A previous version of the photo’s caption misspelled Sacks’ name.
