Tech CEOs want to replicate Tim Cook’s Donald Trump playbook
Tim Cook and then-President Donald Trump, speaking to the Press in Austin, Texas in 2019. | Photo: Mandel Ngan / AFP via Getty Images
Apple CEO Tim Cook managed to forge a personal relationship with Donald Trump during his first Presidential term that other tech firms struggled to replicate. Now, others are trying to follow his template, says a Wall Street Journal report today.
Cook used direct appeals to influence Trump’s 2017 tax policy and to get him to dial back his 2019 tariffs in ways that benefitted Apple. In exchange, Trump got to look good; as the Journal points out, Cook didn’t correct Trump when claimed responsibility for Apple opening an Austin manufacturing plant that had already been around for years and wasn’t even owned by Apple.
Part of Cook’s strategy was keeping things simple, according to the Journal:
Instead of sending government relations...