WEST PALM BEACH: Donald Trump hosted Apple CEO Tim Cook for a Friday evening dinner at the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago resort, according to a person familiar with the matter who was not authorised to comment publicly.
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 president after choppy relations with Trump during his first term.
Trump has said he has spoken with Cook about the company’s long-running tax battles with the European Union. The meeting comes less than two months after Trump said he spoke to Cook by phone, and soon after Apple lost its last appeal in a dispute with the EU over $14.34 billion in back taxes to Ireland. “He said the European Union has just fined us $15 billion,” Trump recalled of his conversation with Cook, in an Oct interview with podcaster Patrick Bet-David. “Then on top of that they got fined by the EU another $2 billion.”
Trump’s transition team and Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the dinner.
OpenAI CEO Altman is planning to make a $1 million personal donation to Trump’s inauguration fund, the company confirmed Friday. Amazon and Meta, the parent firm of FB and Insta, confirmed this week they had each donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund.
#Big #tech #outreach #continues #Trump #hosts #Apple #CEO #Times #India
