As we wrote previously, since November’s presidential election win, President-elect Trump saw a stream of visitors making a pilgrimage to his Florida home at Mar-a-Lago the same month, including people as varied as Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, and liberal media types like MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” co-hosts, Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough
More Leftists Kissing the Ring?
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In the latest instance, it’s another Big Tech figure who just headed to Florida to meet up with Donald Trump–Tim Cook of Apple spent Friday evening eating dinner with him. The CEO was quick to congratulate Trump the day after his victory against Vice President Kamala Harris:
Congratulations President Trump on your victory! We look forward to engaging with you and your administration to help make sure the United States continues to lead with and be fueled by ingenuity, innovation, and creativity.
— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) November 6, 2024
The Hill reported:
The president-elect and Cook had dinner at Trump’s Florida resort in West Palm Beach, multiple outlets reported. The meeting marked their first interaction since their call two months ago.
The president-elect said in mid-October during his appearance on Patrick Bet-David’s podcast that the Apple executive talked to him about fines the European Union imposed on the company.
“Then two hours ago, three hours ago, he called me,” Trump said. “He said, ‘I’d like to talk to you about something.’ ‘What?’ He said, ‘The European Union has just fined us $15 billion.’ That’s a lot.”
According to the NYT, Trump confirmed he was sympathetic to Apple’s plight during that phone conversation with Cook:
Mr. Trump has been receptive to those appeals in the past. During a podcast interview in October, Mr. Trump said he listened sympathetically as Mr. Cook complained to him on a call last month about European regulators who have fined Apple $2 billion for using the App Store to thwart competition.
“I’m not going to let them take advantage of our companies,” Mr. Trump recalled telling Mr. Cook. “That won’t be happening.”
And unlike the others who have stopped by Mar-a-Lago, Cook mostly stayed on Trump’s good side during his first term in office–something that bodes well as we transition into the second one:
During Mr. Trump’s first term, the president heaped praise on Mr. Cook, saying that he liked that Mr. Cook called him directly to discuss business and economic issues. The approach helped Mr. Cook build a personal relationship with Mr. Trump and helped Apple avoid tariffs on many of its products, even as the Trump administration cracked down on other companies manufacturing in China.
This also points to the wisdom of Trump threatening tariffs; even leaders of certain countries seem to take notice of the implied actions that come with them, when President-elect Trump wields them as a negotiation tool. We saw that from another recent visitor, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, from our northern neighbor, as I wrote:
Canada’s Trudeau Has Now Crawled to Mar-a-Lago to Chat With Trump About Tariffs
Amazon owner Jeff Bezos is set to meet with the president-elect next week. We’ll keep you posted.
