As if a $100 billion promise to invest in U.S. manufacturing wasn’t enough, Apple CEO Tim Cook gave President Donald Trump another token of commitment: a customized glass plaque mounted on a 24-karat gold stand.
“It’s a unique unit of one,” Cook said. After Cook pointed out during his Oval Office visit that the gift box was made in California, that the engraved glass was designed by a former Marine Corps corporal who works at Apple, and that the gold base came from Utah, Trump responded, “Thank you very much, it’s fantastic.” The price of gold is $3,383 per ounce as of Thursday.
At the Oval Office on Wednesday, Cook announced Apple’s plans to accelerate domestic manufacturing, pouring $100 billion into the “American Manufacturing Program”, which will expand Apple’s 18-year-old partnership with Corning, a New York-based company that produces the glass for iPhone and iWatch screens. The massive cash infusion brings the tech giant’s total commitment to domestic production to $600 billion over the next four years, following Apple’s $500 billion investment announcement in February.
Apple’s announcement comes as Trump plans to impose a 100% tariff on semiconductor chips, hiking prices for electronics, cars, appliances, and other technology using the chips. With its renewed vigor for U.S. manufacturing, Apple effectively dodges the tax.
“If you’re building in the United States of America, there’s no charge,” Trump said in the meeting with the press and Cook, where he also announced the chips tariff.
Trump has heaped pressure on U.S. tech companies to shift production domestically—despite analysts’ warnings that it’s neither cost-efficient nor logistically practical to do so. Even U.S. manufacturing darling Corning has a Chinese subsidiary providing optical fiber for the regional market. In May, Trump threatened a 25% tariff on Apple if it didn’t cut ties with overseas manufacturers in India and elsewhere. Last month, Cook forecasted a $1.1 billion hit from the tariffs in the coming quarter as it continues to lean on its production in China and India.
Apple did not respond to Fortune’s request for comment.
Cook and Trump’s courtship
Cook has a long history of working with Trump, gaining the title of “Trump Whisperer” for his ability to make compromises around tax cuts and manufacturing commitments.
According to Joseph Badaracco, John Shad Professor of Business Ethics at the Harvard School of Business, Cook’s gift to Trump not only aligns with his ethos of keeping things copacetic with the president, but also continuing to set Apple apart from its tech rivals.
“The president has now gotten a long series of these giant commitments to manufacturing in the U.S. from a lot of other countries and a lot of companies,” Badaracco told Fortune. “So this is the way of making the Apple commitment stand out a little more.”
“Nobody would describe it as ethically noble, but it was just a small gesture underscoring the Apple commitment,” he added.
In April, Nvidia pledged $500 billion to manufacture AI gear in the U.S., following pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly, which announced plans to double its U.S. manufacturing investment to $50 billion. While Cook’s gift to Trump will likely be quickly forgotten, Badaracco posited, other executives may look at Apple as the precedent to navigating policy uncertainty.
“If you’re running a company dealing with the Trump administration, you’ve got sort of a collapse of the old checks and balances: Congress has the courts moving slowly, and in the interim, you’ve got a president who’s acting, by many accounts, arbitrarily,” Badaracco said. “So you’ve got to do what you can in circumstances like that.”
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