Submitted 1 year ago by IchNichtenLichten@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.macrumors.com/2025/01/03/tim-cook-trump-inauguration-donation/
“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.
He’s doing this to avoid being associated with Apple, but this only highlights that he’s personally a piece of shit, in addition to Apple.
Fuck him, fuck Apple, and fuck all those other motherfucking bootlickers enabling these fucking fascists.
He should just be honest and said “this $1m is a mandatory payment to trump so that he exempts Apple from tariffs, no other reason”, of course, then it’s an obvious quid pro quo.
What’s funny (or sad) is that 100 years from now this will be looked at the same was as when Ford or IBM supported the Nazis. Their business won’t hurt long term and Tim Apple will be long dead.
If we survive that long as a species.
IG Farben, Krupp, Thyssen, Boss, Porsche and the mist goes on and on and on. Fuck I suspect that even my own grandfather “had stripes” (slang for collaboration with Nazis without yourself being proclaimed nazi) and he even fought them during the invasion of Norway.
Tim Apple.
After that slip he still bends the knee. Good old classic reliable Tim Apple
$1 million seems to be the going fealty price for these people.
corporations will always prioritize tax cuts and deregulation
Have inauguration funds always been a thing? Or is this a Trump thing? What’s the purpose?
I can understand campaign funds. But if you’ve won I don’t know if I understand a candidate specific donation after the fact.
Previous administrations have used special government funds that are dedicated to the transition and inauguration. This comes with obvious restrictions and ethics requirements since it is taxpayer money.
Trump has decided to not use this money and get donations instead, which allows him and his incoming administration to skirt the normal mandatory reporting, disclosures, and rules.
Ah, corruption to facilitate more corruption.
That sounds like a Trump thing.
Unfortunately based
It’s tribute to the new emperor hoping that he won’t go after them. Gotta play nice while they can.
iClass-traitor.
He’s the CEO of Apple, my guy. He’s serving his class
Nope. Sorry. I don’t feel bad for members of the modern Association of German National Jews.
Extortion, more like
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.
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?
Doesn’t matter. He did it.
The personal donation part is weird. This sounds like a deliberate attempt to appease the fascists while trying, desperately, to maintain Apple’s image.
Fuck that. Not cool.
You best start believing in technofeudal distopias, you’re living in one.
Tim Cook is hoping to be spared when Trump starts purging gay people.
Hey, he’s a billionaire. Being gay is only illegal if you’re poor like everything else.
No war, but the class war.
What a little bitch…
Fuck Tim Apple
Can’t wait for the leopard to eat this face.
Typical CEO tribute to the newly crowned King of the United States for some tariff exemptions.
Whoa, he got the rich to pay taxes.
Not government taxes tho.
Amazon, Meta, Uber, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Coinbase, Toyota, Ford, GM, AT&T, Black & Decker, and Charter Communications are also making donations to Trump’s inauguration fund.
I guess I never really paid attention before but is it normal for companies to donate to an inauguration fund? It sure seems like a government sanctioned protection racket.
Perfectly normal, but not like this.
Speaking of forgetting what’s perfectly normal… the days before uniting the citizens…
Obama capped money for his inauguration at $50,000 per person - still, more than 10 times what individuals could give to his campaign.
ABC News reported that Trump’s second-inauguration haul is on track to shatter the previous $107m record, as pledged contributions have already exceeded a $150m fundraising goal. Barack Obama’s inauguration raised $53m in 2009 and $42m in 2013, and Joe Biden’s raised $63m in 2021.
Oh wow, this is really informative. Thanks for the link friend
Only since Citizens United.
you’re thinking of FECA probably. inauguration vs campaign funds are different things, and Citizens United was about campaign funds.
Kissing the ring, like all the others
More like smooching the butt trumpet.
It’s not going to make him remember your actual name, Tim.
You’ll always be Tim Apple to him.
Time to make him Tim Apple to everyone else, too.
Bad gay!
When you’re a traitor to your own kind for the sake of an unquenchable thirst for profit, you become an enemy to LGBTQ+ folks.
Fuck you, Tim Apple
Yeah, as much as I hate Steve Jobs, he would have given Trump the finger on camera back in 2016 had he been alive.
When people shit on Apple - esp Jobs - they forget that it was Jobs who directed the company to fight the FBI to protect our right to on-device encryption. And the FBI backed down because they knew if they went to the Supreme Court, chief Justice, Antonin Scalia, who was a huge supporter of encryption, would guarantee any challengers to that right would lose.
The political climate is different today, but because of Apple fighting for the right of every person to have on device encryption, we all owe him a debt.
Yes, Steve Jobs and chief Justice Antonin Scalia were both immeasurable pieces of shit, but some good came from them. And it’s a lasting good that will ensure the rights of individuals to encrypted their own data, possibly for generations.
Again, I’m not defending either jobs nor Scalia, they were terrible people. But they did do some good.
Fuck Tim Apple, but please do not ever utter the phrase “bad gay” again.
It’s not just LGBTQ+ folks. Anyone not male, straight, white, christian, republican or natural born is in the firing line.
I think the point is that Tim Apple is all of these things (so he need not care) except straight.
It really goes to show what kind of times we’re living in when Steve Jobbs is the limbo bar to measure good ethics that everyone today is clearing under.
What the fucking, fuck.
Suprised? Had you put him on a pedastle in your mind? Did you think him to be more than a sniveling greedy capitalist prick? I’m sorry for this very harsh fall from artificial grace if so. I’d be careful about holding anyone with more than a few hundred million dollars to lose in too high esteem in the future.
This is one of the reasons why I am gradually untying myself from the Apple ecosystem, and all of propriety/big tech; especially US based.
When push comes to shove capitalism will not resist fascism. They will ignore all stated virtue signals and choose profits.
Choosing E2E encrypted FOSS products, that are interoperable with FOSS standards/formats and do not lock you into walled gardens, are the only viable long term solution.
This might actually become the year of Linux on the desktop for me.
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.
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?
That’s probably 25% of their holiday bonus!
It’s from his own money, not that it makes things any better.
Yes, not really better at all. These donations are all symbols, not meaningful except as a show of obeisance. So we should interpret it along the same symbolic parameters.
It’s being framed as a personal donation because Cook is acquiescing to Trump’s pending authoritarian takeover, but wants plausible deniability that that imputes to Apple. But since Tim Cook is the one acquiescing and he leads Apple, it’s indistinguishable from the same thing. It carries the same message: Apple won’t get in your way, do what you will.
BigMacHole@lemm.ee 1 year ago
All these Billionaires PAYING Trump MILLIONS of Dollars is PROOF he CANT be Bought!
Frostbeard@lemmy.world 1 year ago
None of these companies would touch Trump with a 10 foot pole in the situation wasn’t so dire. But he is the next president, and he is known to respond to stuff like this. Bend knee, kiss his ass and carry a huge wad of cash. This is just the cost of doing business, and even if a vocal minority cries out most people still buy iPhones, Teslas and shop at Amazon and Wal-Mart.
FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 1 year ago
It’s almost like capitalism is a terrible idea.
snek_boi@lemmy.ml 1 year ago
lol I interpret this as sarcasm, as with many of your other comments around Lemmy. If they are so, I think it’s funny and so far I agree with what you actually value, democracy. However, it took me some time to understand your sarcasm. This might be just me, but I wonder if your comments could be subjected to Poe’s Law (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law). Do you think it’s impossible that they could be?