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Though Tim Cook is shedding his CEO title for the role of Apple’s executive chairman, it appears he’ll keep one of his most important duties: that of the company’s Trump whisperer.
“As executive chairman, Cook will assist with certain aspects of the company, including engaging with policymakers around the world,” Apple writes in a press release. Translation: he’s sticking around to deal with thorny political relationships — in particular the one with President Donald Trump.
Throughout his tenure, Cook has navigated Apple through tricky political terrain. He’s had to balance the company’s massive business interest in China with US policymakers’ concerns, and he’s worked to appease Trump for favorable regulatory decisions, without alienating too many Apple employees and customers in the process.
Cook has navigated Apple through tricky political terrain
The task of wooing Trump has repeatedly placed Cook in embarrassing situations: Cook showed the president around a factory in Texas in 2019, where Trump wrongly boasted that because of his policies, Apple was building a new manufacturing plant in the US. Last year, he presented Trump with a symbolic gift of “Made in the USA” glass from Apple supplier Corning set in 24-karat gold.
Recently, Cook took criticism from Trump critics for attending a movie night at the White House, for a screening of the documentary Melania, the same day that Alex Pretti was killed by federal agents on the streets of Minneapolis during a protest against Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Cook later vaguely referred to the “events in Minneapolis,” and referenced a “good conversation with the president.”
For Apple, these moves have largely worked out. Cook’s maneuvering reportedly helped win an exclusion to Trump’s tariffs for the iPhone in the president’s first term, and smartphones dodged some new tariffs in his second term, too. Sure, Trump hasn’t always gotten Cook’s name right, but it hasn’t stopped the president from heaping on praise or inviting Cook to his inauguration.
Cook’s charms over policymakers have been less effective at times. Under the Biden administration, the Justice Department filed a massive anti-monopoly suit against Apple, which the Trump administration has so far kept going, accusing it of illegally dominating smartphone markets. It also fought — and mostly won — an antitrust case against Epic Games, but was later excoriated by the judge who accused Apple of willfully violating a court order and wrested away key control over the App Store. And Apple hasn’t been spared entirely from the recent mess of tariffs, which could cost it as much as $1 billion in a single quarter.
As Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering John Ternus takes over as CEO, the company will need to overcome significant policy challenges, including global efforts to regulate AI, and a push for app stores to verify user ages. Lucky for Ternus, Cook will still be there to take on that job.
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