The president of Apple, Tim Cook, repeatedly criticized Donald Trump, the president-elect of the USA, and even raised money for his opponent, Hillary Clinton. Despite these things, the president of Apple however, he met, together with many other presidents of important US companies, with Donald Trump last week.
The meeting was organized by Donald Trump and was based on his desire to talk to all those who criticized him to explain his vision for the next 4 years. Trump discussed national security issues, job creation and financial issues, but Tim Cook was criticized for being present after criticizing Trump.
Present yesterday at a meeting with Apple employees, Tim Cook was asked again why he participated in the meeting organized by Donald Trump in New York. He gave a very long answer, which you can see below, but the essence is that in order to change something it is important to show those you disagree with why your way is better.
This answer applies not only to Trump, but also to the US government, the European Commission, the Chinese government and any government entity, according to Tim Cook. Separately, Cook stated that he brought up other issues for which Apple campaigned, such as protecting the planet, data security, improving the educational environment and respecting human rights.
You can read more in Tim Cook's answer, available in full below.
"It's very important. Governments can affect our ability to do what we do. They can affect it in positive ways and they can affect it in not so positive ways. What we do is focus on the policies. Some of our key areas of focus are on privacy and security, education. They're advocating for human rights for everyone, and expanding the definition of human rights. They're on the environment and really combating climate change, something we do by running our business on 100 percent renewable energy.
And of course, creating jobs is a key part of what we do by giving people opportunity not only with people that work directly for Apple, but the large number of people that are in our ecosystem. We're really proud that we've created 2 million jobs, just in this country. A large percentage of those are app developers. This gives everyone the power to sell their work to the world, which is an unbelievable invention in and of itself.
We have other things that are more business-centric — like tax reform — and something we've long advocated for: a simple system. And we'd like intellectual property reform to try to stop people suing when they don't do anything as a company.
There's a large number of those issues, and the way that you advance them is to engage. Personally, I've never found being on the sideline a successful place to be. The way that you influence these issues is to be in the arena. So whether it's in this country, or the European Union, or in China or South America, we engage. And we engage when we agree and we engage when we disagree. I think it's very important to do that because you don't change things by just yelling. You change things by showing everyone why your way is the best. In many ways, it's a debate of ideas.
We very much stand up for what we believe in. We think that's a key part of what Apple is about. And we'll continue to do so."
