Apple’s CEO has an opinion about Donald Trump. In fact, Tim Cook can sum up his views on the embattled president’s latest actions with one word: “Wrong.” And that’s exactly what Tim did right after yesterday’s big WWDC keynote address.
Photo: Getty
“He didn’t decide what I wanted him to decide,” Cook told Bloomberg in a post-event interview. “He decided wrong. It’s not in the best interest of the United States what he decided.”
Cook is specifically talking about Trump’s nonsensical decision to pull out of the Paris Climate Accord here, but really, he could be talking about anything the US president has been doing. Just try plugging Cook’s quote into any Trump decision, and it totally works. Was it a good idea for Donald Trump to unleash a tweet storm in defiance of his own administration regarding the so-called “TRAVEL BAN” yesterday? “He decided wrong,” Cook probably thought. “It’s not in the best interest of the United States what he decided.”
This is not a stretch by any means. Not long after Trump’s inauguration, Cook called out Trump for his treatment of immigrants and said he was deeply concerned with the ban. “It is not a policy we support,” he said.
Let’s try another one. Hey, how about President Trump’s decision to skip any messages of sympathy following last weekend’s terror attacks in London, choosing instead to attack the city’s mayor? “He decided wrong,” Cook likely told his friends. “It’s not in the best interest of the United States what he decided.”
It’s refreshing to hear Cook say things like this (even the times we didn’t hear him say it) because there was some speculation early on that soft-spoken CEO would play along with Trump in the name of Apple’s profits. After all, Cook did ascend to the boardroom in Trump’s gilded tower to kiss the ring back in December. So did other tech nobility, like Elon Musk. Unlike Musk, however, Cook chose not to join any of the president’s advisory councils. Cook told Bloomberg in yesterday’s interview that he abstained because he thinks these groups aren’t “terribly productive”.
“It wasn’t about not wanting to advise on something that we thought should be heard,” Cook told Bloomberg, adding that he wanted to continue advising — or attempting to advise — Trump on the Paris Climate Accord. Because, as we all now know, Cook thinks Trump was wrong when he decided to pull out of the agreement.
The Apple CEO is hardly alone here. Seemingly everybody thinks Trump was wrong to pull out of the Paris Climate Accord. Disney, Facebook, General Electric, Goldman Sachs, Google, IBM, Microsoft, Nike, Tesla — all of these huge American companies think Trump was wrong. Elon Musk went so far as to quit his various positions on presidential councils, the same ones Tim Cook thinks aren’t “terribly productive”. Heck, even energy companies like ExxonMobil and Shell think it was the wrong decision.
Is it possible that President Trump is making bad decisions that are also wrong? It’s not only possible, fan boys and girls. Like Tim says, it’s happening.