Apple CEO Tim Cook is in Washington D.C. this week to meet with top Republican lawmakers as the company seeks to forge ties with the GOP ahead of the party’s takeover of the U.S. House of Representatives early next year, Bloomberg News reports citing “people familiar with his visit.”
Emily Birnbaum and Mark Gurman for Bloomberg News:
Cook has scheduled sessions with Republican Representatives Jim Jordan of Ohio, Darrell Issa of California and Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington, according to two of the people familiar with the meetings, who asked not to be identified discussing private travel plans. Jordan and McMorris Rodgers are likely to chair the top committees overseeing the tech industry when the GOP retakes the House next year…
Apple faces intensifying heat from conservatives. Some Republicans are rallying behind [new Twitter owner Elon] Musk, who on Monday attacked Apple and Cook in a series of tweets, claiming that the company threatened to remove Twitter from Apple’s app stores and paused its advertising on Twitter’s platform.
Musk claimed Apple was antagonizing Twitter over Musk’s “free speech” approach to leading Twitter, which he bought for $44 billion earlier this year…
Cook’s meetings are a continuation of Apple’s broader outreach in Washington as the iPhone maker has faced increasing scrutiny from policymakers over its tight control of the app store and extensive ties to China.
MacDailyNews Take: Much of what Tim Cook is going through right now, and will continue to face, is of his own doing (years of kowtowing to China, not diversifying Apple’s production resulting in subservient dependence on CCP-controlled China, limiting features in China, selectively and inconsistently banning apps, routinely abusing his position and co-opting Apple’s brand – the brand Steve Jobs built – in service of his own personal politics, etc.)
Eventually, the chickens come home to roost.
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Cook should just retire. It’s all downhill from here for him and for Apple as long as he’s hamstringing the company as its CEO.
YOU should just retire, you beleaguered loser. Apple is headed by competent managers unlike all the authoritarian asswipes you lionize.
Competent in getting a good product out. Not competent in recognition of what China is up to and recognizing it for what it is—a Communist rule. Cook must have approved the cutting of some normal communication functions of iPhones in China that hinder the protests or it wouldn’t have been done. By doing that, the Communist party is supported by Apple. Very sad. And he’s looking at being a part of shutting down Twitter’s free speech here too. Extra sad! Libs don’t know the difference between “hate speech” and “opinion.” Yes opinion can cross the line to hate speech but a lot of speech is hated by others, because people disagree. Misinformation runs the same fate with opinion. A tough line to walk but free speech is the corner stone of what the United States is built on and Democrats seem to be eroding that stone.
Apple needs a new, dynamic, visionary CEO.
Great report. TicToc’s “preservation,” in contrast to Twitter’s “death” queues up the scenario perfectly. Apple’s allegiance clearly sides with a dictatorship.
This is the extreme antithesis to:
…”the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently — they’re not fond of rules…
Cook/Apple is bowing to the force(s) the “crazy ones” were fighting against. Cook abides by “the rules,” the rules of a dictator and the rules of “proper speech.”
As a gay man, he knows what it’s like to have a voice challenged, yet he embraces the constriction of voices that don’t align with his…Twitter is the current cherry. Pure, clear and simply; hypocrite.
I’m an avid Apple product user and Apple stockholder.
I’m sorry to say that Apple’s behavior towards the Chinese Dictatorship and it’s apparent disregard for American Free Speech is horrible.
What a shame. I thought Apple Corporate was better than this.
I agree Bill. I’ve held AAPL stock on and off since 1982; met Jobs twice; used their products continuously since then and your points are spot-on.
So-called “Common Sense” above has none. His eyes are wide shut. No sense of China’s murderous past and present. Tim should quit. Apple should refuse China’s persistent demands to limit freedoms and if they kick Apple out of their country then so be it. The government will suffer extreme financial collapse and, one hopes, a successful rebellion and the end of Communism (although an unarmed populace will face extreme use of force by desperate despots).
Ive been critical of Tim but its good that he is willing to talk.
In the meantime, Apple had to quickly update the iOS specifically for the Chinese market. The CCP asked Tim if he could restrict Air Drop so protestors couldn’t communicate, and Tim jumped on it and delivered. Who knew the iron fist of oppression wears an Apple watch.