Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, has donated $1 million dollars from his own pocket to the Trump inauguration fund, as reported earlier this month by Axios.
The gay tech executive has been known to sidle up to the president-elect in recent years, and has found it worth his while. In 2019, Cook gifted Trump a Mac after a visit to an Austin factory where Macs are made. In the same year, with the help of Trump, Apple was able to dodge a 10% tariff on its products manufactured in China, where the company still makes many of its products.
Cook had been one of the first to congratulate Trump on his victory in the 2024 election. “We look forward to engaging with you and your administration to help make sure the United States to lead with and be fueled by ingenuity, innovation, and creativity,” he shares in a post on X (formerly known as Twitter.) However, he has also been known to speak out against the waves of anti-LGBTQ legislation coming through the chambers of Congress, in 2015 composing an article for the Washington Post in which he decried Arkansas’ H.B. 1228, a new law that would open the door for “religious freedom,” a.k.a. discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community.
President Trump has run on campaigns of hate against the LGBTQ+ community, with the infamous “Kamala is for they/them‘ ad running in every swing state during election season, shelling out over $19 million on its 55,000 airings. “Left-wing gender insanity,” as Trump calls it, would be targeted in executive orders the President-elect has suggested he would enact in order to block trans teens from gender-affirming care, and even restricting the right to be called their new name and pronouns by teachers in school.
With all of this taken into account, Cook seems like one of those “fiscally conservative, socially liberal” types of centrists, as well as joining what Them is calling the “corporatocracy,” a growing list of CEOs to come out in public support of the Trump administration via monetary donations. Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, and OpenAI’s Sam Altman (who was ousted from his position in a coup last year), all join the list of those who have donated to Trump’s inauguration fund.
Trump was projected to raise $200 million for his inauguration, according to an unnamed source reported by AP. Cook is apparently donating in the spirit of democracy, and paying for the donation on his own. Apple itself will not be donating anything to the fund. The inaugural fund paid for staffing, the event itself, and other events related to the inauguration. Any leftovers are expected to be spent on Trump’s presidential library.
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