Cook has openly embraced Trump, particularly in his second term, attending the president’s inauguration, presenting him with an engraved golden trophy, and giving money to the White House to help construct the president’s $300 million pet project ballroom.
The relative workplace calm may be over. “I hope we never find out, but I seriously started wondering what our leadership would do if an Apple employee was summarily executed by our government,” wondered one employee.
Many workers claimed hypocrisy between Apple’s longtime professed commitment to progressive values and causes and the extent to which its CEO has cozied up to the Trump administration. “But but but…. we changed the Apple website to MLK last Monday, so that cancels out.” Another pointed sarcastically to the company’s recent announcement of Black History Month Apple Watch bands. “Went to hang out with the guy who didn’t even acknowledge MLK Day and took away park access on the day,” commented one worker.
For some, the affront was personal. “As a lifelong Minnesotan and an Apple badged employee for over half my life I feel pretty abandoned by the company that has told me it stands for humanity more times than I can count,” wrote another worker. “Silence on ICE violence speaks volumes.” Another pointed out the “Three retail locations in the Twin Cities and not a peep” from Cook. “This isn’t leadership. This is an absence of leadership.” To which a colleague quickly countered: “I disagree, this IS leadership. This is intentional, nobody travels to the white house by mistake.”
An Apple employee who has spent decades at the company said they had noticed a marked cultural and political shift within Apple under Cook’s tenure. “A lot of people are talking about how Steve Jobs would have never given a gold bar to a politician,” referring to the 24-karat gold trophy Cook presented Trump at the White House in August.
I’m shocked people are shocked Apple is supporting Trump. Apple’s been contracting slave labor from CCP concentration camps. They sell expensive gadgets that are hardwired to not let people repair them, and harass those who offer fair market repairs. Again, though, slave labor. Apple has not been on the side of human rights in decades.
Amazon, Dell, Google, Huawei, Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony, Xiaomi have all used Foxconn. By 2012 it was producing 40% of all consumer electronics. That blood is on everyone’s hands.
Likewise Amazon, Samsung, Google, Tesla, Dell, Lenovo, HP, Cisco, Sony, and Microsoft all have supply chains tied to CCP forced labor. Hell Volkswagen has been tied to it. Over 100 global brands were found to be connected in a 2025 investigation.
So let’s not act like Apple’s out there alone in this. You’ve most certainly got electronics in your house that have components produced in such a way. You’ll buy more.
However, you’re very much right in that Apple is not the company it used to be. Lots of us who have used Macs since the 80s or 90s have an emotional connection to the platform and the brand, which has taken a lot to dissolve.
When Apple was the underdog, churning out failures and oddities, it was easy to love them, even as we despised a lot of the decisions they made. They were the crazy alternative to giant corporate bullshit. Jobs would walk into recruitment interviews with IBM employees, barefoot, sit on the conference table, and ask if they had ever done acid. Was he an asshole of epic proportions? Yes. Was he fascinating and unlike anyone in the industry? Yes.
Now people are waking up to the real Apple of today, the one that’s become a massive corporate juggernaut, the one that openly supports fascism, and we need to keep encouraging that, giving people offramps and alternatives, like I am looking for myself. We gotta cheer that on.