WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – Donald Trump hosted Apple CEO Tim Cook for a Friday night dinner on the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago resort, in response to an individual conversant in the matter who was not licensed to remark publicly.
Cook dinner is the most recent in a string of huge tech leaders — together with OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos — who’ve sought to enhance their standing with the incoming president after uneven relations with Trump throughout his first time period.
Trump has mentioned he has spoken with Cook dinner concerning the firm’s long-running tax battles with the European Union.
The assembly comes lower than two months after Trump mentioned he spoke to Cook dinner by cellphone, and shortly after Apple misplaced its final enchantment in a dispute with the EU over 13 billion euros ($14.34 billion) in again taxes to Eire.
“He mentioned the European Union has simply fined us $15 billion,” Trump recalled of his dialog with Cook dinner, in an October interview with podcaster Patrick Guess-David. “Then on prime of that they acquired fined by the European Union one other $2 billion.”
The choice by the EU prime courtroom was the finale to a dispute that centered on sweetheart offers that Dublin was providing to draw multinational companies with minimal taxes throughout the 27-nation bloc. The European Fee in 2016 dominated that Eire granted Apple illegal assist that Eire was required to recuperate.
Trump’s transition staff and Apple didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark about his dinner with Cook dinner.
OpenAI CEO Altman is planning to make a $1 million private donation to Trump’s inauguration fund, the corporate confirmed Friday. Amazon and Meta, the guardian firm of Fb and Instagram, confirmed this week they’d every donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund.
Throughout his first time period, Trump criticized Amazon and railed in opposition to the political protection at The Washington Submit, which Bezos owns. In the meantime, Bezos had criticized a few of Trump’s previous rhetoric. In 2019, Amazon additionally argued in a courtroom case that Trump’s bias in opposition to the corporate harmed its possibilities of profitable a $10 billion Pentagon contract.
Extra lately, Bezos has struck a extra conciliatory tone. Final week, he mentioned at The New York Instances’ DealBook Summit in New York that he was “optimistic” about Trump’s second time period whereas additionally endorsing president-elect’s plans to chop laws.
The donation from Meta got here simply weeks after Meta CEO Zuckerberg met with Trump privately at Mar-a-Lago.
Throughout the 2024 marketing campaign, Zuckerberg didn’t endorse a candidate for president, however voiced a extra optimistic stance towards Trump. Earlier this 12 months, he praised Trump’s response to his first assassination try.
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