“Apple CEO Tim Cook plans to donate $1 million to Donald Trump’s inauguration fund, reports Axios. The donation will be a personal donation directly from Cook rather than a donation from Apple”
I’ll defend Apple as being the least shitty of the big tech giants but I can’t defend this.
These CEOs are funding hate, violence and the end of American democracy - they have enough power, money and influence to oppose, yet they don’t. They decided that a few must be sacrificed for the greater
goodprofit.Something happened on the 4th of December. Today is the 4th of January. Just in case anyone’s calendar app is stuck closed. Interesting if true…
Well… they saw that they can show their real face.
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Absolutely disgusting
I can’t help but wonder if this is to take the news spotlight away from the Siri recording scandal that just popped up
What Siri recording?
A 20 dollar per device settlement for selling your data for billions. And the lawyers get paid big. Who the fuck is working for the working class? The law? Defense attorneys? Leaders?
lol 98 million? why not something proportional to the ad revenue that apple made in said years? oh I know why because law exists for billionaires. this is just apple paying some more money so that this scandal goes away as soon as possible which might be even more costly to them on the long run than the 98 mil they are paying.
It’s peanuts to them. It’s about 15h of profits is all. You can’t even call it a slap on the wrist, more like a friendly tickle ha
Pathetic thinly veiled bribe
Needs to make sure there’s a loophole for Apple production when more China tariffs hit.
Or it is protection money. “Nice apple you got there, would be a shame if anyone took a bite out of that”….
If any company could insulate itself from Trump’s agenda, it would be Apple with its “fuck you” money.
This is cowardly and craven.
I think they are buying carve outs for the tariffs
Why would Tim Cook be assosiated with Apple in trumps mind?
Apple is owned by Tim Apple.
Kind of strange that this line cook is able to afford a small 1 million dollar loan…what? You think trump knows that a loan is different than a donation? You think he knows you’re supposed to pay back loans?
I am very sure Trump does not actually think, at best he works based on instinct, but so does his chaotic band of mouth-breathing, blood-seeking raging insurrectionists.
This country makes me sick to my stomach. What a fucking joke.
If you can find a way: get out.
For everyone else, you have my sincere sympathy.
And go where? Where in the world is safe right now? I thought about living in the Philippines with my family, but China is probably waging war soon. Europe? With the way America is headed and the war is going? Let’s assume Ukraine wins: Europe is out of gas and will militarize and right wing governments are rising with German nationalism leading the battle drums, Ukraine gonna be in an economic slump, Russia is gonna be subservient and dependent on China because its economy is gone without a win.
That leaves countries with metropolises that are suffering from westerners gentrifying their neighborhoods with the USD being strong in these places. We are really going to make the poor in other nations pay the price for our government’s doing again, but this time by our own choice? That’s not any better imo. Unless you are leaving with the specific intent on making the place you are going better, stay home please
Do you mean safe or safer than the U.S.? Because you can’t be guaranteed of absolute safety anywhere. If you’re queer or brown, there are a lot of countries where you’ll be safer than the U.S.
Fair point. If you are in immediate danger then yeah, not gonna argue. But if you are able to stay and do something, that should be preferable.
I am brown (Filipino). I won’t be leaving. My sister lives here. My nephew. They can go somewhere safe, but there aren’t many places safe from a hot, land war in this world like the US observably is. Mayyybe Canada, but enjoy that economy.
Imagine being a woman working for Apple and having a CEO who funds a rapist.
It’s absolutely wild how the first time around, everyone left of center was against Trump, even if it was only posturing. This time around, he’s even worse and the same people are literally supporting him.
It’s not the same people. It’s more people. He actually won the popular vote, which hasn’t been done since W Bush. And arguably, that didn’t even happen.
Imagine being an openly gay CEO who funds a party who hates gays
They don’t hate gays, they hate honesty, and also having social and legal limitations for various divergent traits allows blackmail and defamation.
They don’t hate gays
Yeah, they only cheer on the concept of queer genocide and talk about how queer people groom children to support the idea.
But they don’t hate them. Jesus loves them after all.
They hate poor gays
No, they hate all gay people. They are just lower on the list right now, but they are definitely there.
First they came for…
And open guys, and gays suffering for our sexuality. None of them visited Roy Cohn as he died of AIDS. Tim Cook may get spared from raids at first, but if it goes as bad as we fear he’s going to have nobody willing to defend him
The guy clears 2 billions in net worth. There are plenty of people who are willing to defend him for a piece of that.
Ah, but what will others do for all of it? Fascists eventually decide to just steal from the undesirables
Paying his tribute to the king. He’ll have to donate more if he wants to usurp Elon. How much has Zuck donated?
Also 1M to the inauguration. It’s a shakedown IMO, though FWIW 1M is pennies to these guys.
I feel bad for Tim.
He made a point during the first Trump administration that having a seat at the table is better than not.
This time around, it seems his first compromise is making a public “pay to play” donation to Trump, while keeping Apple itself out of the audit trail.
I am positive this is the last thing he wants to do, and is doing his best to protect the interests of his company while taking all the shrapnel from people explosively decrying his “bent knee” to this “Con-man in Chief”.
I blame Trump’s mafia tactics more than anything else. As hard as it is to compare a nearly $4-trillion company to mom and pop shop, this feels just like the local mafia shaking down small shops for protection money.
Again, I feel bad for Tim.
Not much to do about it. But fuck him.
I’m not going to judge Tim by his intentions, I’m judging him by his actions. Did Trump solicit this bribe or did Tim preemptively do it?
Pull up Tim’s statements from the lead up to the first Trump election—before Trump held the office, the tone was different. After the election, Tim knew he needed to maintain a seat at the table, now he is absolutely being forced into public “offerings” to the new king.
I’m sure being forced to play by Trump’s mafia rules bothers Tim, but he knows taking the high ground could have negative effects which would (hopefully) outlast any presidential administration.
It really isn’t any different from the Mom and Pop shop scenario—I’m not going to blame Mom and Pop for “supporting” the mafia.
https://fortune.com/2016/08/24/apple-tim-cook-fundraiser-clinton/
Cook is an oligarch and he has long lost the ability to tell right from wrong (personal matters notwithstanding, but that’s a very very low reference point).
Don’t think it bothers him in the least.
Again, you’re trying to make excuses for him based on what you assume his intentions are. There’s no evidence that Trump solicited these donations, so it’s not comparable to the mafia. He just had to keep quiet and politically agnostic and Trump would likely not have noticed. The fact remains that Apple is way more popular than Trump would be unlikely to take action against Apple. I’m judging Cook based on his actions and the harm it will cause. I don’t care about his intentions; the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Doesn’t matter. He did it.
Nope. Sorry. I don’t feel bad for members of the modern Association of German National Jews.
Yeah, these billionaires really need our sympathy. Things are pretty rough for this guy. Kinda makes me want to start a go-fund-me to help drum up some support for the poor chap.
Nah, actually he can fall into a sink hole tomorrow and slowly asphixiate while I eat my generic cheerios with slightly expired milk dripping down my grinning chin.
Extortion, more like
I guess it was that or a blow job.
You best start believing in technofeudal distopias, you’re living in one.
$1 million seems to be the going fealty price for these people.
Paying largesse/protection money.
Tim Apple.
After that slip he still bends the knee. Good old classic reliable Tim Apple
Why does such a thing as an inaugural fund exist? Seems like it’s just to facilitate more corruption!
It doesn’t usually. The ‘why’ in the case is because Trump and his team refuse to sign the ethics agreement to get the normal funding from the government.
Thanks, it must be amazing for Americans to have a president who won’t sign a standard ethics agreement.
Americans have been convinced to sell themselves out.
Every trump supporter is either a dipshit or someone taking advantage of dipshits.
Up here in Canada, we’re only ever 10 years behind at most.
Germany, too, is poised to follow suit at the upcoming elections in February.
It’s coercion but somehow legal.
Corruption as always. Regular donations ensure that whoever is currently holding power isn’t going to cause [regulatory] problems
It’s worse than that. There’s a level of hypocrisy here in that a company marketing itself as inclusive has a CEO who is donating to a far right, authoritarian slush fund. This isn’t business as usual.
This isn’t business as usual
It is. The hypocrisy is part of the business itself. Democrats are in power - you market inclusiveness and donate to democrats. Republicans win - you donate to republicans.
And in reality - you don’t give a fuck about politics, you just play the rigged game by its twisted rules.
I disagree. You don’t see Democrats openly lining up to declare war on minorities. Don’t do the “both sides” thing.
You don’t see Democrats openly lining up to declare war on minorities
Yeah, you see them declaring war on the majority. The result is Trump winning the elections.
Republicans also declare war on the majority but their voters aren’t smart enough to realize.
