What Apple’s Cook and Tesla’s Musk discussed in their private meeting with President Trump

“We heard before Wednesday’s tech summit that Tim Cook and Elon Musk were going stay behind to meet privately with Donald Trump. We haven’t heard yet what they talked about,” Philip Elmer-DeWitt writes for Apple 3.0. “But I can guess.”

“During Wednesday’s round of introductions, according to the Wall Street Journal, Cook was cryptic,” Elmer-DeWitt writes. “He said he looked forward to talking to the PEOTUS ‘about the things that we can do to help you achieve some things you want.’ Musk was explicit. He said he was ‘really excited about expanding our manufacturing footprint in the U.S.'”

Elmer-DeWitt writes, “Bringing manufacturing jobs back to America was one of Trump’s big campaign promises, and these two companies would be sexy, high-profile gets.”

Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: Likely, repatriation taxes came up, too.

85 Comments

      1. I would love to live in a country for which eight years of economic growth is considered a disaster; in which a universal, mandatory health care is a disaster; in which marriage equality is a disaster; in which stock market goes from 8,000 (day of inauguration; 6,000 six weeks later) to close to 20,000… and it is a disaster…

        Living in an information echo-chamber really thoroughly rinses brains from any ability to objectively process informaiton.

        1. Predrag, what drugs are you on?

          Here’s what 8 years of the obamination gave us:
          -Added more debt that all other presidents combines
          -Lowest labor participation rate since the 1970s
          -Almost 95 million Americans out of the labor force
          -Worst recovery since 1940s
          -Lowest Home ownership rate in 51 years
          Nearly 13 million additional Americans on Food Stamps
          -Over 43 million living in poverty
          -devastated the military ranks and capability
          -destroyed heathcare. “Affordable” plans tripled my rates.
          -destroyed school lunch programs
          -lots more

          Only an idiot would think the Country is in good shape after 8 years of the obamanation

        2. I think you need to check your sources. Almost every single datapoint you are mentioning is wrong, or grossly distorted, from what I know about your country. And it isn’t even my country!

          Your country is now politically divided so much that there is simply nothing one side can do that will be ever acknowledged by the other one.

          By most objective measurements, America is better than it was eight years ago.

        3. Predrag You don’t have a f’ing idea what you are blabbering about. Go destroy your own country and leave us alone while we pick up the pieces left by the abomination and rebuild.

        4. As you can see Predrag, ignorance in this country is considered bliss and facts just get in the way. People like d will defend President Elect Cretin even if he did shoot someone in cold-blood on 5th Avenue. Evolution just took a wrong turn for some people.

        5. Evolution made all of us this way. By default, instincts rule the behaviour of every living thing, bar none. Like typical mammals, we do most of our decision-making with our gut feelings. We differ from other species in that we singularly possess an advanced rational thinking apparatus that can collect evidence, consider cause and effect, and make consciously reasoned judgements that often conflict with our gut feelings.

          Yet we usually go with our gut. And then, win or lose, we fire up our rational thinking apparatus to justify the careless decisions we made — a criminal waste of the miracle of consciousness and free will. We are all armchair quarterbacks, wizards of the excuse, self-deniers.

        6. God made all of us this way. By default, instincts rule the behaviour of every living thing, bar none. Like typical mammals, we do most of our decision-making with our gut feelings. We differ from other species in that we singularly possess an advanced rational thinking apparatus that can collect evidence, consider cause and effect, and make consciously reasoned judgements that often conflict with our gut feelings.

          Yet we usually go with our gut. And then, win or lose, we fire up our rational thinking apparatus to justify the careless decisions we made — a criminal waste of the miracle of consciousness and free will. We are all armchair quarterbacks, wizards of the excuse, self-deniers, and sinners.

        7. That was quite ingenious! I wonder how many here notice the difference between the two posts and if that very difference is the reason between slightly higher rating to the second one.

          Too bad the sample is way too low for it to mean anything at all, since it would be so cool to work out a hypothesis from those differing ratings…

        8. You don’t have sources. All you have is dumb Democrat cheerleading.

          “By most objective measurements, America is better than it was eight years ago.”

          By ALL objective measurements, America is more worse off, more in debt, more divided, more clueless at the bottom of education, more wasteful spending in government that accomplishes NOTHING and never solves the problem.

          I could go on, but it will not change your clueless perspective one atomic particle. Yes, ignorance is bliss … 🤔

        9. Don’t misread me, GoeB. I insisted that fake news is equally likely to be consumed by Democrats as Republicans, and that reports to the contrary are likely to be biased in as-yet-unexplained ways. Don’t try to label me as a deluded partisan, when I try so hard to be the one person who isn’t.

          Let’s make a deal. I propose to make my points more clear, and you pledge to read my comments more closely. There may yet be a meeting of the minds, free of the myriad triggers that cloud our judgments.

        10. @d:

          Cite your claims.

          Debt was added by Hank Paulson at the end of the Bush administration, remember?

          Interesting you pick the high point of labor participation rate in US history as a point of comparison. Actual US unemployment is only 5%. Let’s not forget that before WW2, official labor participation was about 50% less since most women were not allowed to have careers.

          95 million Americans are in school, retired, or independently wealthy

          worst recovery since the 1940’s is a ridiculous statement. The great depression saw a quarter of Americans destitute. Few in America today know true poverty. If you are wiling to work, America has jobs. But today we have an epidemic of opiod addiction, legalized hash, and psychological issues. I suppose you think this is Obama’s personal fault too.
          – home ownership is a strange statistic. technically, banks have always been the owners of most peoples’ homes. reference please.
          – Military power has never been greater in the USA, that is undisputable
          – there are no food stamps in the USA. Welfare reforms have raised requirements such that job training or work is required to receive any aid.
          – your rates for insurance tripled because your state didn’t regulate insurance companies. the federal law has reduced uninsured rates by 20 million people, which means you don’t have to pay emergency room costs for them.
          – what’s wrong with your school lunch?
          – do tell how Obama destroyed your narrow little world.

          I swear, no matter how easy life becomes in the USA, we live in a nation of whiners who thing everything is worse now than when your grandparents lived on the farm, in a shack with no running water. get a grip on reality sometime.

        11. I have heard it said that you can present facts to a Democrat and they will question them to test their veracity but you can present a lie to a Republican and they will repeat it ad nauseam without questioning it once.

          The US education quality ranks in the bottom 1/3 of developed nations and is highest in the cities. If you look at the electoral map of the US, you will notice that the Republicans represent mostly the rural areas. Is there a link?

        12. Actually I think you have it reversed. Most of the Dumbocrats I know automatically choir any false notion that comes up in the pack that is a wishful thought. I only WISH the Dumb Dem’s would question more as well. Everytime I have questioned something that hasn’t been backed up by facts, or ask where did they get their information I get criticized. So don’t be too proud of this liberal party, there are many flawed all-to-accepting-of things-they-want-to-hear members of that club too.

        13. I think you are basing your claim on wrong, incorrect or non-existent data.

          His statement is supported by existing and available research and data. Two most conspicuous data points: fake news consumption — vast majority of fake news of the last year has been consumed by the self-declared conservatives in America. Those who identify as progressives have largely shown little interest for fake news. The other: average level of education — noticeably higher for urban areas (which lean progressive) than rural (which lean conservative), and there is a strong correlation between level of education and questioning of information sources. There are many more data points supporting this. This does NOT say that conservative are dumb, or gullible; it just indicates that they are more likely to accept (and not question) information if it aligns with their preferences.

          Your testimony may well be correct, but it is simply anecdotal and largely reflects the kind of audience you’ve been reaching, and not necessarily the average Democrat.

        14. The fake news explosion is proving difficult to control. It manifests as a network phenomenon, but operates at several levels with intricate connexions. At this early stage of investigation, any reported correlations are misleading at best. The reports are likely mere artefacts, emergent properties of a complex system that is poorly understood.

          All normal human brains operate with irreducible biases that unconsciously aid decision-making. The well-known confirmation bias proves Fesarius’s point: there are just as many liberals as conservatives who don’t trouble to question data that please them. I would go farther and say all of them.

          The central question is why there are so many more right-wing fake news stories. This kind of asymmetry does not jibe with basic human nature and therefore must have a social and economic explanation.

        15. “The central question is why there are so many more right-wing fake news stories. This kind of asymmetry does not jibe with basic human nature and therefore must have a social and economic explanation.”

          The explanation is clear. Fake news is not exclusive to the right. And I would argue you have it exactly opposite.

          Depending on the media outlet, for decades now, anywhere from 80-100 percent of mainstream journalists are Democrats.

          Following that train of facts, anything published today not approved by PC Democrat journalists are automatically labeled as fake news. Just go back a few months and remember the election reporting, predictions, polls and opinions that said for months, Clinton WILL WIN in a landslide.

          IMHO, the gold standard for fake news!!! 😆

          Trump nuked the fake news coming out of the entrenched cabal of Democrat journalists. And better yet, the average person sees it, with or without a degree and an elitist zip code.

          Surprised at your lacking response along partisan lines. Truth rules, baby! 😊

        16. Well said and I agree.

          Democrats follow and run in the collective dogma pack. They have not questioned authority since the sixties heyday of GOOD liberalism … sad.

          The present day, mutated PC intolerant left would not recognize a fact or a truth to save their life.

        17. Your post ignores the facts. It is profoundly partisan, informed by the sources of verifiably fabricated quality.

          It has been confirmed, in interviews with fake news producers from the town of Veles, Macedonia (check Fox news if you don’t believe) that the fake news aimed at the conservatives have significantly higher consumption rates than fake news aimed at progressives. In other words, conservatives tend to believe (and then share) fake news much more than liberals. Fake news producers tend to produce content that generates revenue, and they have largely abandoned producing fake news for liberals, as it doesn’t seem to pay well enough tho make it worthwhile.

          Let us not confuse fake news with simply partisan news. You can hypothetically have one-sided coverage, even if all of it is completely factual and true. You claim that the “mainstream media” election news were fake, but there is absolutely no way you can corroborate that. News isn’t fake just because you don’t like it.

          And as for the projections of the outcome, we all know how that happened (and Fox News wasn’t any different; their projections, up until the last day, were as grim as the rest). You see, mainstream media (and that includes Fox, or WSJ, or NY Post) used the research data from many different polling organisations. And, while all of those polls had variances, they all mostly predicted same outcome, only to varying degrees. And how did the outcome turn out to be different? Because many likely Trump voters simply lied in the polls. For one reason or another, they told pollsters that they would vote for Clinton, when in fact they ended up voting for Trump. There is no liberal conspiracy here (cannot be, if Fox, WSJ, NY Post reported the same thing). Polls are only as reliable as their sources are, and if sources are not truthful, and if pollsters have no way of knowing this (and adjusting the polls for that), then they will inevitably be wrong.

          Your last sentence (dogma pack, questioning authority) can be perfectly applied for the conservatives. One (of many) examples: Bush claimed weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, even when his own Secretary of State (Colin Powell) said himself it was bullshit; conservatives never questioned him. Consequence: the Iraq war is the single most significant reason why ISIS now exists. Iraq and Syria, while both brutal dictatorships, were probably the most secular Arab countries (look at photos of Syrian and Iraqi women from the 80’s; they are wearing western clothing, no headscarves, no hijab, no burka). The Iraq war is universally perceived in the Arab world as the invasion of imperialist America on a sovereign Arab land, in order to exploit their oil. No other event in history had generated so much radical hatred and resentment against America.

        18. @Grumpy … yes, heathcare costs continue to go up.

          But what most people don’t realize is that what did change was the rate of change (how fast they were going up).

          Under Obama, the rates of the increase has been much lower than versus the same time period under Bush, and has been reported as such in the professional journals:

          http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2015/11/12/388800.htm

          For the TL;DR … heathcare costs were increasing by roughly 10% per year back in 2000-2008. Since Reform, they’ve dropped to roughly half of that (4-5%).

          Sure, it would be nice if they actually were to go down, but there simply isn’t the Political Willpower to take on Big Pharma to limit their profit margins.

        19. So almost 95 million out of work. That’s 29% of the total population and if you remove under age and retired probably closer to 50% that’s some super exadurasion. Bureau of Labor Statistics data says it was 5% in Jan 2008 and currently 4.6%.

        20. Indeed Predrag. With all the recent attention to ‘Fake News’, it’s amusing to recall that propaganda, aka Fake News, is an ancient practice of those who adhere to the mantra: “If you can’t compete, cheat! Much of our media here in the USA is bombarded with propaganda. You can listen propaganda radio programs, watch propaganda TV programs, join propaganda email lists, distribute propaganda materials both physical and digital to one’s victim friends and families.

          Digging for facts and attaining perspective about it all is a challenge, one that a lot of US citizens find too daunting or difficult. I call it stupifaction and one can see why it has been so persistent over the past century. As con men are fond of saying:

          There’s a sucker born every minute.

        21. It is laughable that you started your thread with a litany of so called facts that the U.S. economy improved the last eight years.

          In one respect, OK, anything northward of the recession after eight years is a minor improvement. But tell that to Trump voters who overwhelmingly rejected that mime in historic, come from behind proportions, never seen before in U.S. history. They don’t feel it, and that includes some of Clinton supporters, as well.

          When your company has not given yearly cost of living raises to employees for ten years and your city, county and state taxes rise year after year — you call that an eight year booming economy? Incomes are decreasing, not growing. Hello?

          Keep your doctor? Affordable Care Act? Complex tax code? Onerous regulations strangling small business? Yeah, right. Absolutely great eight year economic recovery.

          And here is another in·con·ven·ient truth you FAILED to mention. The deficit under the current hapless administration increased by more than the previous 43 Presidents combined. Absolutely great eight year economic recovery

          We who measure both sides fairly and factually search out the real truths, the real facts, in a bipartisan manner are merely AMUSED by your one-sided propaganda. 🐂💩

          You should remember that.

          Oh, and BTW @d was over 90 percent correct. You fail to see it. Pity.

      2. Government is not a business, and never should be.

        The last 6 years have been nothing but republican obstructionism. It is irrelevant whether the Obama administration was competent or not, the vast majority of problems that people while about have their root in congressional inaction. One wonders how bad it has to be before citizens vote out their corrupt and ineffective representatives.

        1. Here’s a free clue for you…

          …unless you have a couple of Porsches parked at your various houses you own and a Seven Digit 401(k) – – you’re not part of the 1% who has been benefitting. Nor are you going to be the beneficiary of the policies that we’re likely to see in the near future. Instead, you’re one of the little people who are going to get utterly crushed.

        2. Government IS a business, and we citizens are both its customers and shareholders. It needs managers that can effectively operate it. There is a recent AP article that itemizes legislation passed by the so-called “Do Nothing” Congress. It is actually quite a bit. Resisting bad legislation proposed by the Obama administration is not doing “nothing”. If is doing the job that constituents of those members of Congress voting NO were sent to Washington to do. It’s really no different than the problems Bush had with the Democrat majority Congress he faced over many years.

        3. Business and finance are games that we humans have built upon the natural human behavior of sharing. They have game rules and game strategies and game cheating.

          Government has nothing to do with game playing, at least ideally. Nonetheless, game players apply game strategies to governing and thus diminish governing to the level of game playing. The ultimate application of game playing to governing of course is to force the process of governing to fit into a game system, such is business.

          There are aspects of business and finance that of course are critical to the integrity and discipline of governing. But to pretend that government must be run like a business is of course ludicrous. Nonetheless, here we are in the USA attempting to run our government like a business, with of course predictable results. Thus we FAIL to govern and instead play games.

      1. Explain yourself. No matter where you dwell on the multidimensional political spectrum, the extremists are the ones who have the least ability to understand the point of view of the middle.

        What does freedom mean to you? It is my experience that consumerism has gripped the minds of every end of the poltical spectrum such that easy credit, cheap gas, and stores full of shiny gadgets is what most Americans equate to freedom.

      2. There are so many in the US who worship ‘freedom’ yet have no clue that for every ‘freedom’, there must be a corresponding RESPONSIBILITY. People who worship ‘freedom’ generally mean their own ‘freedom’ but care little how their actions impact others. No one will tell them what they can or cannot do. I believe that that is actually anarchy and that is where no one has any freedom but live in fear of everyone else.

  1. If Musk and Cook bring manufacturing back to the US, it will certainly be factories full of robots. Any jobs will be in the maintenance and programming of the robots and keeping the shop floor clean. The first two will require technical education, and the third one, too, probably.

    1. The robots will be manufactured in Korea or China and the buildings that house them will be made of the same steel that Trump used in his buildings BUT the labour to make the buildings will be supplied by LEGAL immigrants who are willing to work.

  2. This is why they met with Trump. Apple repatriates all cash. Apple buys Tesla. It funds the fast track build out of Gigafactories across the U.S…Builds out electric vehicle mass production and charging infrastructure across the U.S. Builds out Musk’s plan of solar homes, solar roof tiles and powerwalls, Homekit monitors energy use and ability to sell back to the iGrid. Also, Apple takes the 1/3 stake they just made in China wind turbine company and bring some of that manufacturing to U.S. to use in U.S. Total rebuild of U.S. infrastructure around clean energy using new manufacturing and job creation. Trump goes down in history as the president who ushered in the great environmental revolution and is credited with saving the planet.

    1. That’s brilliant, and almost plausible. It it turns out to not be true, there still remains the chance to craft an alt-history sci-fi novel using your intriguing scenario. Trump himself might even bankroll a movie based upon it. The movie would not, however, star Alec Baldwin.

    1. Celebrity is like gravity. The more of it you have, the more attractive you get, and the more satellites you acquire.

      Slightly off-topic: working my way through Buss’s Evolutionary Psychology (fifth edition), in a chapter on mating strategies, I was startled to turn the page and see a red carpet photo of Donald Trump with his beaming young wife. Trump exemplifies status and resources—qualities that women desire in a long-term mate.

      1. But according to many conservative fundamentalists Christians who supported Trump, evolution is not true and the earth is only 5000 yrs old. And yes, some of these people are elected Republicans….how very sad.

        1. Christian sects are at war with one another, and always have been. Just read any history book. They have hurt all the rest of us by importing their doctines into the political process. Our founding fathers tried to protect us against such assaults, but they have failed. Jefferson, Franklin, Washington—losers. They should have known better. I give them credit for trying, but we still live in a fraught world two hundred years later and it appears that only mass slaughter will settle affairs. As it ever was.

        2. The War of the Rebellion, 1861-1865. Sects took sides against one another, and preached fiery sermons summoning the wrath of God against moral traitors and calling Christian soldiers to arms against their oppressors. This was a shooting war to clarify, once and for all, the language and meaning of the Declaration of Independence, with its fierce appeal to humanity’s sense of justice and its faith in our Creator to sanctify our bid for freedom … justice and freedom being variously defined.

          Religious sects are splinter groups, doctrinal dissenters. Most die out but some thrive and rise to become world religions. It’s the splintering I refer to when I say they war with one another. Many of the conflicts are verbal; but importantly, when social governance gets mixed in, they can lead to outright warfare. The Troubles in Ireland, the Thirty Years’ War, the Crusades. Yes I know they are European but so many of us are transplanted Europeans, with the same noble ideas as our benighted ancestors and the same disdain for the ideas of others.

          And it is clear that the War of Rebellion 1861-1865, or the American Civil War, as it is called by Ken Burns, or the War Between the States, as I was taught it in Virginia, is not over. The South will rise again, we were warned, and fiery crosses will be involved. I pray for a peaceful settlement of our differences.

        3. I never thought of it in that light before. I guess it could be on one level relating to abolition as righteous and moral, but I can’t really see it as a Christian sectarian issue . I had always considered it an economic/labor dispute escalated to tragic consequences as it became antagonized by the federal centralized power versus states rights debate that had been going on since Adams and Jefferson.

          And still goes on to this day, the electoral college as an example.

        4. Thank you for respecting my opinion, botvinnik. People do see things differently, and I think that is a good thing, for official histories are little more than loathsome propaganda prepared for the side that won or the side that paid more for it. Like you, I prefer to form independent judgments. I know that in the end, you and I will be standing side by side at the bulwark against the advancing forces ot totalitarianism, and we will exchange a nod and a wink before taking them on. There is hardly a higher purpose in our short lives, and we oughtn’t waste them in purposeless squabbles.

    2. I just got home from the Trump Thank You Tour in Hershey PA. It was awesome!
      All seats (10,500) were taken except for some way up high behind the stage. Plus the the floor (i.e. ice hockey rink) was totally full of people. 15,000 is probably a good estimate.
      They said 8,000 more were outside. I have to admit that even I was skeptical about this figure but a friend who works there confirmed it to me.
      It was bitter cold and very windy. It took about an hour to get in. By that time, my toes were numb.

    3. Hitler had big rallies too…he was seen as very charismatic as well. A lot of dictators were in fact known as charismatic, including Castro and Lenin.

      I give props to Trump for being able to draw the crowds…and that can be an asset…but just because he can doesn’t make him a great leader…it just makes him a great entertainer.

        1. Barry, Hitler was elected leader of the NSDAP. So maybe that makes him more similar to the swine in Trump’s cabinet?

          At least BHO didn’t make his sole goal the reversal of every policy of his predecessors no matter what the facts of their effectiveness. Factless Trump uses the same ideological divisionism as post-Weinmar Germany. Even the rhetoric matches. Keep out the immigrants! Build up the army! Blame the brown skinned people for our economic woes! The fearmongering is eerily similar and just as stupid. Lets hope someone reins in Trump before he assigns all the Mad Dogs in his cabinet to follow through on Trumps well known racist ideals.

        2. “Then Hitler appointed himself chancellor, sole seat of power in one man, a dictator. You conveniently forgot to mention that part.”

          No no no no no no!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! >:(

          “The absence of an effective government prompted two influential politicians, Franz von Papen and Alfred Hugenberg, along with several other industrialists and businessmen, to write a letter to Hindenburg. The signers urged Hindenburg to appoint Hitler as leader of a government “independent from parliamentary parties”, which could turn into a movement that would “enrapture millions of people”.[139][140]

          Hitler, at the window of the Reich Chancellery, receives an ovation on the evening of his inauguration as chancellor, 30 January 1933
          Hindenburg reluctantly agreed to appoint Hitler as chancellor after two further parliamentary elections—in July and November 1932—had not resulted in the formation of a majority government. Hitler headed a short-lived coalition government formed by the NSDAP and Hugenberg’s party, the German National People’s Party (DNVP). On 30 January 1933, the new cabinet was sworn in during a brief ceremony in Hindenburg’s office. The NSDAP gained three posts: Hitler was named chancellor, Wilhelm Frick Minister of the Interior, and Hermann Göring Minister of the Interior for Prussia.[141] Hitler had insisted on the ministerial positions as a way to gain control over the police in much of Germany.”

  3. Trump : ” Tim, You’re Fired!”

    Best Christmas Present Ever – said many LOYAL Mac users WAITING for SOMETHING

    “We have exciting things in the pipeline.” – T.Cook 2012
    “We have exciting things in the pipeline.” – T. Cook 2013
    “We have exciting things in the pipeline.” – T. Cook 2014
    “We have exciting things in the pipeline.” – T. Cook 2015
    “We have exciting things in the pipeline.” – T. Cook 2016

    PLEASE sign this simple petition to get this clown out of this important job. I am willing to bet ANYONE other than him would do a better job. TIM COOK HAS TO GO!!!!
    https://www.change.org/p/apple-board-of-directors-remove-tim-cook-as-ceo-of-apple

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