Apple’s Tim Cook to donate $1 million to Trump inaugural committee: report

Sources with knowledge of the donation told Axios that Cook will be donating to the inaugural committee in the spirit of unity, and believes that the inauguration is a great American tradition. The outlet reported that Apple itself is not expected to donate.

Cook met with Trump multiple times during his first term in the White House and in November, he had dinner at Mar-a-Lago with the president-elect.

In November, the Wall Street Journal published a report highlighting how Cook "cracked the code on working with Trump," noting that Cook developed a personal relationship with Trump over years of "carefully choreographed dinners and meetings." The relationship between the two was built in part "by zeroing in on areas of mutual interests between Apple and Trump’s agenda," and Cook’s strategy for meeting with Trump would involve bringing "one data point to home in on in a single issue in a meeting" so that meetings won’t end up "spiraling in too many directions."

Also donating to the inaugural fund are OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, and Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg. Both Bezos and Zuckerberg have dined with Trump at Mar-a-Lago recently as well.

In the wake of the first Trump assassination attempt, Zuckerberg called Trump a "bad*ss." Bezos refused to allow his outlet, the Washington Post, to endorse Kamala Harris in the 2024 election and congratulated Trump on his Election Day victory.