As the presidential election approaches, candidates are campaigning and making promises. The latest from Republican candidate Donald Trump is noteworthy, especially since it came in the form of a surprise phone call from Apple CEO Tim Cook.
In a recent interview with the PBD Podcast, Trump said Cook called him to discuss the billions of dollars in fines the EU has imposed on Apple. Trump’s response? He won’t let the EU “take advantage” of U.S. companies if he’s reelected.
Cook was reportedly referring to two fines. In March, the EU fined Apple €1.8 billion (about $1.95 billion) in the Spotify case. Then, in September, the EU ruled that Apple must pay €13 billion plus €1.2 billion in interest (about $14 billion plus $1.3 billion in interest) for unpaid taxes.
Trump also emphasized something relevant to him in that call. Trump said that Cook told him EU officials were “using that to run their enterprise, meaning Europe is their enterprise.” In other words, the Apple CEO believes the EU uses these fines to run his business, to control it (according to Trump).
“I’ve got to get elected first, but I’m not going to let them take advantage of our companies—that won’t be happening,” Trump reportedly told Cook.
As The Verge noted, this conversation follows a similar statement Trump made during a Bloomberg Television interview about Google. Trump claimed he spoke to Google CEO Sundar Pichai and complained about negative news appearing on the search engine that hurt his reputation.
Recently, Trump has also been in contact with Tesla CEO Elon Musk, one of the campaign’s largest donors, and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, underscoring Trump’s efforts to win support from Big Tech.
Image | Budiey
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