Trump Says Tim Cook Called Him To Complain About the EU (theverge.com) 89
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Donald Trump said Apple CEO Tim Cook called him to discuss the billions of dollars that Apple has been fined in the European Union. Trump made the statement during his appearance on the PBD Podcast -- and said that he won't let the EU "take advantage" of US companies like Apple if reelected. "Two hours ago, three hours ago, he [Cook] called me," Trump said. "He said the European Union has just fined us $15 billion... Then on top of that, they got fined by the European Union another $2 billion." In March, the EU fined Apple around $2 billion after finding that Apple used its dominance to restrict music streaming apps from telling customers about cheaper subscription deals outside the App Store. The EU later won its fight to make Apple pay $14.4 billion in unpaid taxes.
"He [Cook] said something that was interesting," Trump said. "He said they're using that to run their enterprise, meaning Europe is their enterprise. "I said, 'That's a lot... But Tim, I got to get elected first, but I'm not going to let them take advantage of our companies -- that won't, you know, be happening.'" Trump has talked to several Big Tech executives over the past several months. "During an interview this week, Trump said he spoke with Google CEO Sundar Pichai to complain about all the 'bad stories' the search engine shows about him," notes The Verge. "Elon Musk recently spoke at a Trump rally in Pennsylvania, while Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg called Trump over the summer 'a few times,' according to the former president."
"He [Cook] said something that was interesting," Trump said. "He said they're using that to run their enterprise, meaning Europe is their enterprise. "I said, 'That's a lot... But Tim, I got to get elected first, but I'm not going to let them take advantage of our companies -- that won't, you know, be happening.'" Trump has talked to several Big Tech executives over the past several months. "During an interview this week, Trump said he spoke with Google CEO Sundar Pichai to complain about all the 'bad stories' the search engine shows about him," notes The Verge. "Elon Musk recently spoke at a Trump rally in Pennsylvania, while Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg called Trump over the summer 'a few times,' according to the former president."
So, anybody see the comet? (Score:5, Interesting)
I got a good look Saturday night by chance. I was working outside in the evening and there it was.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
"Maga's Gate"
I only come to Slashdot for the comments. (Score:2)
Unfortunately not see. I did get a photo of it though. There was too much light pollution and I had to bump the contrast up in the picture. However now that the comet is higher I may get the telescope out and give it another go, it's supposed to be clear this weekend.
This is a much better conversation than the worthless Trump rants about being upset that the EU has its own laws.
Who's Tim Cook? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Who's Tim Cook? (Score:4, Informative)
Oh come on, moderators. [cnbc.com] This should be +1 Funny.
Re: Who's Tim Cook? (Score:2)
Tim Cooks Apple (Score:3)
Tim Cooks Apple.
Delicious.
https://www.themediterraneandi... [themediterraneandish.com]
Trump says (Score:5, Insightful)
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not to mention, Trump knows or understands what the EU is ? ,very doubtful.
Very
Re:Trump says (Score:5, Interesting)
I believe it not because I think Trump is credible, but rather because I think Tim Cook is a two timing snake who would totally appeal to Trump behind closed doors, while touting progressivism and liberalism publicly.
As much as I'd like to doubt this, Peter Thiel is a thing, so this is sadly a genuine possibility.
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This is the common way the powerful operate. They need to appease the masses, but at the same time a company the size of Apple has a leadership that is deeply involved in the politics of the land. It stands to reason that Tim Cook would appeal to *both sides* given the current poll has the potential future leader as a coin toss.
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>if he was president, what could he do about the EU
Trade negotiations and sanctions are a thing. Last time he was president, his tariffs on EU products enabled a lot of negotiations and concessions, including regulatory concessions. Some of which came during his tenure, and some during current one.
And with current vice president and former president being two primary candidates, Cook would be in dereliction of his duty if he didn't lobby both to help his US headquartered megacorp with government to gover
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Cook would be in dereliction of his duty
Funny, if this was any other country he'd be either investigated for bribery or executed for impersonating the king / despot. It's only in the US where corporations view such acts as a "dereliction of their duties" instead of "direct threats to their core business interests."
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Not sure which countries you're referring to, but all countries that are high on personal freedoms (i.e. do not have despots and if they have kings they are ceremonial rather than actual acting leaders) consider it to be normal for someone employed in a leadership position to have a duty to people who own the company and work at it.
I guess you're talking about DPRK?
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Anyway, even if he was president, what could he do about the EU.
He'll put a 2000% tariff on EU apples? :-)
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They care somewhat, they got pretty upset last time when it was suggested they should pay their NATO bills, that they had already agreed to and weren't doing.
The number paying their dues ALSO fell sharply in 2021, another weird coincidence!
Military spending targets are not NATO bills or dues.
What people were upset about was NOT the ask to pay more. It was unhinged language that directly undermines the alliance. The whole concept of NATO is based on an untested premise of collective defense. If you have members mouthing off they not only won't come to your aid but encourage the enemy to do whatever they want it erodes the very thing holding the alliance together - trust amongst the members.
I'm sure its just a coincidence though.
There is massive demand for weapons from European s
Re:Trump says (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm a huge Trump critic, but you have to give credit where credit is due. Unlike what both sides try to make people think, the other side is not always 100% bad and wrong about anything.
Getting NATO to spend more is one of Trump's accomplishments. All the more important against the backdrop of the Russian invasion of Ukraine that followed. Despite Trump frequently acting like Putin's puppet, that at least was something that worked in favor of protecting Western Democracy, even if it was not enough.
All of this being said, this is pure Nepotism at show. Apple, one of the most profitable companies in the world, complaining about the bad EU with its regulations and rule of law standing in the way of its tax evasion and anti-competitive practices. Turning to the potential next US president hoping to strong-arm the EU in the hopes of protecting it from these socialist evils. Fuck Tim Cook.
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This recent article from The Atlantic is on point on the subject. Unfortunately behind a paywall, but I think you get one free read:
What's with all the Trump VC's? [theatlantic.com]
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Over the years, I've read often on Slashdot, people writing comments that it's a corporation and their only purpose is to make profit, they don't care about you.
I often thought that was too dry and cynical, and not really the case, and that actually some corporations are better than others and have more principles and ethics than others.
But more recently, I started reading The Corporation by Bakan. It makes the case that essentially and legally, the way corporations function, they have to be psychopathic. T
Re:Trump says (Score:5, Funny)
Anyway, even if he was president, what could he do about the EU.
He could complain about it on X. At 2 am. Every night. With lots of typos.
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Well, let's wait for Cook to confirm (Score:4, Informative)
Because ... you know ... let's just wait.
That said, this doesn't strike me as that odd. If Apple did something that ran afoul of anti-competition laws in the EU, I would expect them to be fined.
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Who cares if Tim did call him?
Are you gonna switch your vote?
Or switch to Android?
CEOs talk to politicians all the time.
If Tim endorsed him or contributed a spare billion to his campaign, that would be big news.
Re:Well, let's wait for Cook to confirm (Score:5, Insightful)
Who cares if Tim did call him?
Well I for one really don't. My point is that I'm not going to take Trump's word on what was discussed, or even that Cook called, because Trump has a history of making up or misrepresenting conversations he had with others.
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Who said anything about dems getting away with it. They get called out plenty of times as well.
In other news Trump only last week claimed John Deere decided not to build a factory in Mexico based on the fact that Trump wouldn't let him. Unfortunately he made that up completely as well https://newrepublic.com/post/1... [newrepublic.com]
This is good. Both you and I should be pointing out the things which are lies. Just don't get upset when you run out of material while we are still only on chapter 1, volume 1 of 10 of Trumps v
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Are you gonna switch your vote?
Maybe a few MAGA church followers will finally realize their orange prophet roots for disgusting billionaires who don't pay their taxes more than honest working stiffs.
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At this point it's likely less anti-competition and more DSA and AI regulation related stuff. Both are trade issues/barriers from perspective of US corporations, but with WTO's primary resolution mechanism now having failed that neither Trump nor Biden/(Harris) administration approving any new judges in almost 8 years of their combined rule, it makes sense for corporations to ask their respective governments to lobby for them directly instead. Especially in US, where both candidates policies on WTO are clea
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Don't hold your breath waiting for that to happen. Unlike some other companies *cough*Tesla*cough*, Apple actually wants to be publicly perceived as being progressive, so any back room dealings with conservatives has to stay on the down low.
I imagine these guys talk to both candidates (Score:3)
They're gonna try and position themselves as best they can, from the start, with both Trump and Harris.
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They're gonna try and position themselves as best they can, from the start, with both Trump and Harris.
You'd only have to make half the number of calls if you wait until after one of them wins. No, if this actually did happen, it's because there's some quid pro quo implied. If we start seeing Trump ads start popping up on everyone's iThings, well, now we know what Tim's end of the bargain was.
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I don't think that approach - waiting to see if he wins first - would work with Trump. He'd definitely fault you for not paying obeisance erifarly enough.
It might make one's initial relationship with President Harris a trifle chilly, too.
EU is not the USA (Score:3)
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You realize the US actually has a great deal of pull with the EU, right? The US has a lot of resources and weight they can throw around to make EU member states miserable if they don't bend to the US' will. They've done this kind of thing before, and there's no doubt in my mind they'd do it again.
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I don't think you understand. The GDP of the US is 50% greater than the GDP of the EU.
You could combine the GDP of China and India together and still not be able to compare to the US.
The US could totally throw their weight around and heavily influence the EU if they wanted to. They could make things MISERABLE for the EU if they wanted to.
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Not everyone is moved by money alone. It remains to be seen if the EU countries will be, but it's still a lesson worth learning regardless.
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I am not denying that the USA could make life miserable of any country it wanted to bully, but bullies do not always get the out come they want. Short of a military invasion there is no way the USA can force any country do someth
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Impose levies on wine, parmesan and high fashion and he's getting free lobbyists in the EU. One side get's to pay more for iPhones, the other side has to make do with chilean champagne and grated cheddar
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Yeah sure, "The US is a world superpower! 'Merica." But guess what? 'Merica isn't the only superpower in the world anymore, and lately it's been abandoning it's core "principles" on the world stage whenever it's convenient. To say nothing of the previous guy's temper tantrums with the EU and other NATO countries, or his penchant for ripping up international agreements on a whim. (I.e. Not the kind of guy you want to make long ter
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China has been taking advantage of the increasingly divided and extreme politics in the US to sell itself as the new stable superpower for some years now.
The EU kinda has too, but tends to take a less colonial attitude than the US. It's mostly about trade, which is done on the EU's terms, and doesn't include all the geopolitical stuff, or the mandatory boot-licking.
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You realize the US actually has a great deal of pull with the EU, right? The US has a lot of resources and weight they can throw around to make EU member states miserable if they don't bend to the US' will. They've done this kind of thing before, and there's no doubt in my mind they'd do it again.
No the USA does not have the pull required to get the EU to drop landmark laws. This is something incidentally the USA has tried multiple times in the past and failed at (remember the debacle with requirement to keep data within the bloc?).
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I used to think he was pandering, but we're talking about a man who bankrupted a casino, invested his wealth worse than a simple index fund, and was absolutely perplexed when it turned out that Haitians weren't eating dogs and cats, and were in the country legally.
He is a man that got upset that China put tariffs on American goods after he unilaterally put tariffs on Chinese goods (the result of which had a bigger effect on America than China), and also got upset when the WTO called his tariffs unjustified
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Um, would you be interested in buying an undersea gas pipeline, slightly broken?
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Why do you think it didn't happen? Tim Cook is a snake, and he would TOTALLY throw principal out the window for money He has, many times before. He's a scumbag.
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Corporations primary principle is making money. It's their reason for existence. Everything else is in service of that.
So this story is completely believable. In fact, Cook would be in dereliction of his duties of care toward shareholders and employees if he didn't attempt to lobby all likely presidential candidates to help his company in government to government issues, such as foreign regulatory oversight.
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Except it was different when Steve Jobs was still alive. I worked for Apple at that time, and the companies focus was serving their customers well. After he died, the companies focus and directives changed and we were told to be profits and numbers focused.
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This worship of Jobs really needs to stop. He was a businessman first, asshole second, and everything else a distant tenth. He was really good at convincing people otherwise, which is why he went through women and simps as fast as he did.
For latter, apparently even after his death.
Re: Thank you, Ken.... (Score:1)
I worked for the man. I saw what policies he instituted in the company while he was there. This isn't worship. This is fact.
While Steve Jobs was alive, he insisted that customer focus and customer experience be first and foremost on everyone's minds. After he died, the focus was shifted, by Tim Cook, to be profits first.
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To quote myself from my previous post:
>he went through... simps as fast as he did... apparently even after his death
Re: Thank you, Ken.... (Score:1)
You're entitled to your ignorant and incorrect opinion. The fact of the matter is, while he was alive, I as an employee was given a lot of latitude to make sure our customers were happy, and after he died the first thing that changed was that latitude was taken away, and we were required to maximize profits at the expense of customer satisfaction, which was something we were never required to do previously.
If you view that as simping, you might be suffering from brain rot.
I also find it funny that someone w
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You're equally entitled to your biased and flawed opinion as well. Reminder, Apple got way, way bigger and more valuable after Jobs died than it ever was during his tenure.
Objectively, not subjectively. We can measure it, and we have in fact measured it. Results are in. Apple is way bigger, way better, and way more valuable now than ever during Jobs' tenure. Now comes the hard question:
Was whatever leeway you personally got getting in the way of achieving this level of excellence in producing value, or was
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As for Google search, it's incredibly biased against Trump. It's shocking. Ditto the MSM.
Maybe they're just reflecting reality's liberal bias.
*flushes rest of nonsense*
Is he saying (Score:1)
Would Slashdotters vote for Trump? (Score:4, Interesting)
A question from a Brit. Would the denizens of Slashdot vote for Trump? Honestly. Personally I don't think anyone here would buy into the virtual reality that Trump seems to live in.
I'm somewhat surprised that the head of Apple would call him to have a moan about the EU imposing fines for abusing their dominance in the marketplace. If he was a sitting president, then maybe, but as a multi-impeached ex-president? It feels like it would dirty Apple's squeaky-clean persona, even though they are just as predatory as the rest of them. I can understand Trump ringing Pichai about google results, because that pokes holes in his alternative reality. But why would Cook call him to moan about having to hand out what amounts to pocket change? It sounds made-up, to me anyway and not the first time that Trump has said something that is patently not true.
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Incredibly, despite all of it, he seems to be in with a genuine chance of becoming POTUS again next month. So naturally Tim Apple will want to get in early and maybe even plant some ideas that Trump could ramble about at one of his rallies.
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Would the denizens of Slashdot vote for Trump?
Depends on if you ask people with mod points or not. Scroll to the top of the comments section and pull the sliders all the way to the right revealing how many Slashdotters are actually mad keen trump supporters. Slashdot is just news for nerds, we're not big or important enough for all of those supporters to be Russian trolls. There are legit people who buy the Trump bullshit and get off on sniffing it.
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Also sorry for the double post but:
I'm somewhat surprised that the head of Apple would call him to have a moan about the EU imposing fines for abusing their dominance in the marketplace. If he was a sitting president, then maybe, but as a multi-impeached ex-president?
This makes perfect sense and I'm not surprised in the slightest. Even in the UK and EU the governments are preparing plans on how to deal with 4 years of Trump presidency. The polls put him winning at a coin toss. The leaders of mega companies have a job to ensure their governments are sympathetic to their businesses. That Tim Cook talked to Trump isn't a surprise, what would be a surprise is if the democrats stated that Tim hadn't also talked to Harris. I would bet you my
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You might be surprised. I for one am probably going to do something this November I've never done in my life -- vote for Trump. Not sure if this will get downmodded, but let me explain some of the reasons why, in no particular order.
1. The economy was much better under the last Trump administration than it is now. I'm not sure if it is coincidence, but somehow the economy under Trump actually worked. The current administration is just obsessed with spending larger and larger amounts of government money
It's bad over here (Score:2)
Tim Apple.... have you heard of him? A lot of people don't know about Tim Apple. He called me about the European Onion, he says "They're against me. They're against us. Sir, is there anything you can do?" They really want us bad over there. Lots of awful deals, terrible deals. Lots of people know about it. And I know because I'm great at Europe. I'm probably the best at Europe since Reagan. Some even say I'm the greatest. Don't know if that's true but some people say it.
Bad Stories (Score:2)
Trump said he spoke with Google CEO Sundar Pichai to complain about all the 'bad stories' the search engine shows about him,"
As they say: If the shoe fits, wear it.
economic war (Score:3)
So Trump threatens to ignite an economic war with EU? Can the US manage a simultaneous economic war with both China and EU? And still remain relevant on international politics? After withdrawing from NATO too? Isolationism FTW!
Just some Name Dropping (Score:1)
I expect it of Trump but... (Score:2)
Yet another reason to hate Apple.
How they think the non-winner of the next US presidential election is going to stop the EU, for example, convicting the EU arm of Apple for not paying EU taxes in the EU... I'm not sure.
Hell, some of those taxes were the Irish taxes that were deemed unfair state aid, and IRELAND were fighting for them not to be paid, and the EU overruled their own member and forced Apple to pay them.
The words "zero credibility" don't suffice. (Score:2)
Is that a joke? (Score:2)
Trump is saying that Apple being fined for not paying EU taxes in the EU isn't okay, but if someone born in the US lives in the EU the US takes taxes from them as well as the expected EU taxes.
From what I've heard, apart from one small country, the US is the only place that taxes people who aren't even living or working in that country.
Putin's best investment ... (Score:2)
Was in Trump, divide and conquer, at a global scale.
Yeah, that... (Score:2)