Last week, on August 7, 2025, Apple CEO Tim Cook appeared at the White House and presented Donald Trump with a custom-made glass plaque on a 24-karat gold base, engraved with Trump’s name and the words “MADE IN USA.” At the same event, Apple announced $100 billion in investments in U.S. manufacturing — and confirmed that it had received an exemption from large semiconductor tariffs.
The internet’s reaction was largely unanimous, but I took a short pause to think. I thought about it, and I still can’t find a way this event could look good overall. Certainly, “good” is a concept that depends on context and other factors. Such flattery from Cook toward Trump is probably good for Apple itself, its shareholders, and its employees, whom the company provides with jobs, etc. But the timing and circumstances looked too conspicuous: a gift, gold, an economic concession. It seemed less like a coincidence and more like a calculated exchange — a modern echo of transactional politics that calls corporate integrity into question. Where “transactional politics” ends and corruption begins, I won’t claim to say.