Apple CEO Tim Cook laughs with President Donald Trump during a meeting at the White House, Washington, March 6, 2019.
Leah Millis Reuters
President Donald Trump praised Tim Cook in a long speech on Public Truth on Tuesday, calling out those who came out an apple The CEO is an “amazing guy” and boasted that Cook had 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 big problem that can only be solved by me as President.”
Trump continued, “When I got the call I said, wow, it’s Tim Apple (Cook!) calling, how big is that? I was very impressed with Apple’s head calling ‘kiss my ass.’
Apple representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Trump’s Public Truth post.
The post is a sign of the White House’s strong relationship under Trump. Business leaders have sometimes shown a willingness to appease the president in order to advance their interests.
Daniel Weiner, director of elections and government policy at the Brennan Center for Justice, said Trump’s post is a reflection of his “bare politics and his bare-knuckle administration.”
“It’s this expectation that CEOs of powerful companies should just call him and respect him, and in return get a favor,” Weiner said. “It may be the way governance has actually happened at various points in our history, but it’s certainly never been pretty. And now it’s almost as lauded as an idea.”
Cook, who is stepping down after nearly 15 years, has been very effective in guiding the administration. He directly urged Trump during Trump’s first and second terms to shape policies on taxes, tariffs and other issues affecting the iPhone maker.
Overtures were often effective. Last year, Cook secured an exemption from Trump’s sweeping spending on phones, computers and chips, which is critical to Apple’s mission. Trump admitted that he “helped Tim Cook” with the move, although the White House denied giving grants to certain companies.
“Throughout my five years as President, Tim has called me, but never a lot, and I’ve helped him where I can,” Trump wrote on Tuesday. “Years ago [sic]after 3 or 4 BIG HELPS, I started telling people, anyone who would listen, that this guy is an amazing manager and leader.”
Cook, in some cases, went beyond phone calls to appeal to Trump. In August, he presented Trump with a 24-karat gold and glass statue emblazoned with the words “Made in USA” as Apple announced an additional $100 billion commitment to American manufacturing.
John Ternus, currently senior vice president of hardware engineering, will take over at Apple on Sept. 1 and Cook will assume the role of executive chairman. Apple has indicated that it will continue to abuse Cook to manage politicians.
“Cook will help with certain aspects of the company, including communicating with policymakers around the world,” Apple said in a press release.
Technology is increasing
Trump’s unfiltered understanding of how Cook won favor comes as other Silicon Valley leaders have followed the same playbook.
Technical managers from Amazonapple, Google again Meta they have dined with Trump during his first and second administrations. They also contributed millions to his inauguration fund and the president’s planned $300 million White House.
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, spent more than a quarter of a billion dollars to restore Trump to the White House. He also took over the role of leading the Department of Government Operations, the Trump administration’s effort to reduce federal power.
Despite public controversy over Trump’s “big, beautiful bill,” Musk, the world’s richest man, has remained close to the president. He attended a White House dinner with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in November and reportedly joined a March phone call between Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
A White House dinner with tech CEOs last September drew a lot of attention after attendees took turns praising Trump.
After the event, the CEO of Meta, Mark Zuckerberg, was heard on the hot microphone talking to Trump about how to organize the spending plans of his company after the company will invest “at least 600 billion dollars by ’28 in the US”.
Seconds later, Zuckerberg said to Trump, who was sitting next to him, “I’m sorry, I wasn’t ready to do our job … I wasn’t sure what number you wanted to go with.”
Zuckerberg later addressed this heated moment in a Threads post, saying he was confused at the time because Meta thought it would invest “more” in the US beyond 2028.
“I wasn’t sure what number he was asking about, so I just shared the low number in ’28 and clarified for him afterwards,” Zuckerberg wrote.
President Donald Trump speaks as, from left, White House AI and crypto czar David Sacks, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and first lady Melania Trump listen during a meal in the State Dining Room at the White House on September 4, 2025.
Alex Wong | Getty Images
Intel took a page from Cook’s playbook after Trump pressured his chief of staff, Lip-Bu Tan, to resign following reports of Tan’s ties to China. After Tan went to the White House for a face-to-face meeting, Trump called him a “success.”
The following week, the US government took a 10% stake in Intel through an investment of 8.9 billion. That came from unpaid CHIPS Act grants and federal awards for semiconductor manufacturing.
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI and a donor to Biden’s 2024 re-election campaign, was a former Trump critic who changed his tune in 2025. He posted on X in January of that year: “watching @potus closely lately has really changed my opinion of him.”
Later in 2025, Trump issued an executive order that overruled many state-level AI regulations in what was a major win for Altman and other industry leaders who had been pushing for the move.
Altman has met with Trump on several high-profile AI announcements, including Trump’s Stargate joint venture and another project in the United Arab Emirates, both launched last year.
The startup’s CEO, who has maintained a close relationship with Trump in his second term, also secured an agreement with the Pentagon to use advanced AI systems in classified areas, hours after OpenAI rival Anthropic was banned by the administration.
OpenAI founder and president Greg Brockman reportedly donated $25 million to Trump’s super PAC, MAGA Inc., in September.
Amazon and founder Jeff Bezos have met with Trump during his second term in the White House, a big difference from his first term, when Trump often attacked the e-retailer. The president frequently insulted Bezos and his ownership of The Washington Post, as well as his tax record.
The Trump administration last year praised Bezos, who appeared on stage at Trump’s inauguration, for his decision to revamp the Post’s editorial pages to focus on “personal liberties and free markets.”
Last April, Trump said Bezos, who is stepping down as Amazon’s CEO in 2021, was “good” and a “good guy” after the billionaire assured Trump the company had no plans to display tax-related penalties on its website.
Amazon has been criticized for its $75 million investment in “Melania,” a documentary about the first lady produced by Amazon MGM Studios and Melania Trump. Lawmakers called the move a “pay-to-play scheme” and questioned why the company was paying so much more than usual for documentaries.
Amazon insisted it did nothing “improper,” according to Variety.
The media
Companies outside of Silicon Valley have also gone to great lengths to win over the president.
Last year, Importantowner of CBS, agreed to settle with Trump for $16 million after the president filed a lawsuit alleging that an interview with Kamala Harris on “60 Minutes” was manipulated to make the then-Democratic presidential nominee look better.
At the time, the lawsuit was viewed by some at Paramount as a potential obstacle to selling the company to Skydance, which required approval from the Trump administration.
Paramount said at the time that the lawsuit was “completely separate and unrelated to Skydance’s work.”
ABC has come under fire after it agreed to pay $15 million to the presidential library and $1 million in legal fees to settle a defamation lawsuit it filed against the network and attorney George Stephanopoulos.
The case was centered on an interview where the anchor said that the judge found that Trump was “guilty of rape” in two cases filed by journalist E. Jean Carroll.
In May 2023, Trump was found guilty of sexually harassing and defaming Carroll and ordered to pay $5 million. In January 2024, Trump was again found guilty of defamation in a separate lawsuit brought by Carroll.
In 2025, ABC, and its parent company Disneysparked another firestorm after he suspended late-night host Jimmy Kimmel for his comments after Charlie Kirk’s murder.
ABC and Disney have been under pressure from Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr, a Trump appointee, and Nexstar Media Group, the company that owns ABC’s local affiliates.
Nexstar — which was pursuing a merger with a rival, called Tegna, and needed FCC approval — had threatened to ban Kimmel’s late-night show from its network, shutting down the program entirely in parts of the US.
The White House has denied that Kimmel was suspended due to pressure from the Trump administration
Kimmel’s suspension ended in less than a week.
Nexstar’s bid to merge with Tegna has been approved by the FCC, although the acquisition was halted by a federal judge last week.
Correction: This story has been updated to reflect that the White House AI and crypto czar is David Sacks. The photo caption in the previous version misspelled Sacks’ name.
