US president mixes praise with trademark bluntness in recounting the Apple CEO’s calls for help
US President Donald Trump has claimed with his usual bluntness that Apple CEO Tim Cook once called him to “kiss his a*s.”
The tech giant announced on Monday that Cook will resign as CEO and become executive chairman in September. He will be replaced by hardware chief John Ternus.
In a tribute to the man he famously called “Tim Apple,” Trump said they first spoke early in his first term, when Cook called him to present “a fairly large problem” that “only I, as President, could fix.”
“When I got the call I said, wow, it’s Tim Apple (Cook!) calling,” Trump wrote on social media on Tuesday, reviving the nickname that once went viral, before adding he was impressed to have the head of Apple calling to “kiss my ass.”
“He makes these calls to me, I help him out (but not always, because he will, on occasion, be too aggressive in his ask!), and he gets the job done, QUICKLY, without a dime being given to those very expensive (millions of dollars!) consultants around town who sometimes get it done, and sometimes don’t,” Trump wrote.
Behind the humor, the exchange points to a well-established pattern of close contact between Silicon Valley and political power. A Wall Street Journal report on Tuesday said Cook “effectively lobbied the White House directly” to secure outcomes such as tariff exemptions.
During the escalation of the US-China trade conflict in early 2025, Apple successfully avoided sweeping tariff hikes that threatened other major firms, largely due to Cook’s direct, behind-the-scenes outreach to senior officials and the White House.
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Despite praising Cook as an “incredible guy,” the relationship has not been without friction. Trump has repeatedly pushed Apple to move manufacturing to the US and last year said he had a “little problem” with the CEO over plans to expand production in India.
He also publicly clashed with Cook over Apple’s refusal to scrap diversity policies, urging the company to abandon DEI programs he described as “a hoax that has been very bad” for the US.
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