US President Donald Trump: Achievements of Apple under Tim Cook Surpass What Would Have Been Under Steve Jobs
US President Donald Trump praised Apple CEO Tim Cook in a lengthy post on social media, stating he has "always been a super fan of Cook and Steve Jobs." However, he believes that if Steve Jobs had not passed away early and continued to lead, Apple "would have done well, but absolutely not as well as under Tim's leadership," calling Cook's management performance "almost unparalleled." He recalled that his relationship with Cook began with a phone call early in his first term, where Cook contacted the White House about a tricky issue that "only the president could solve." Trump found Cook's request reasonable and quickly helped, assisting Apple on several major issues during his subsequent five years in office, while emphasizing that Cook never abused this channel and rarely spent money on "consultants charging millions of dollars who may not get things done."
Several English media outlets have previously reported on the "direct phone diplomacy" relationship between Trump and Cook. Around 2019, Trump granted exemptions or delayed tariffs on electronic products like the iPhone multiple times due to Cook's argument that tariffs would weaken Apple's competitiveness against rivals like Samsung, drawing public attention to Apple's production layout in China and its interaction with White House trade policies. Reports from Business Insider and CNN noted that Trump publicly stated, "Tim Cook is a great executive because he calls me directly," viewing this personal channel as one of the key reasons for his "favoring Apple and granting tariff exemptions," while Cook later described this relationship in interviews as "maintaining communication to achieve favorable outcomes for the company and employees."
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
Trump's narrative directly illustrates how "big companies—personal presidents" can influence policy through informal channels: not through institutional hearings or transparent lobbying registrations, but by relying on personal calls and relationship capital, bypassing some technical bureaucrats and middle-level processes to reach agreements at the highest level. From Apple's perspective, this path is extremely efficient in the short term—gaining tariff exemptions or regulatory flexibility through direct lobbying by the CEO directly improves profit margins and supply chain stability; however, from an institutional standpoint, it undermines the predictability and universality of policy-making, making "who can reach the president's phone" a core competitive advantage.
By self-deprecatingly using the "Tim Apple" joke, Trump inadvertently emphasizes another layer of structure: in his view, one hallmark of a "great executive" is the ability to bypass the traditional consulting and lobbying industry chain and directly exchange information and commitments with the centers of power. He mocks companies that spend millions hiring consultants yet "get nothing done," effectively positioning himself as the "ultimate coordinator who bypasses the intermediary system," placing individual connections and judgment above institutional processes. For large companies like Apple with significant scale and bargaining power, this represents a posture of "negotiating directly with the state as a company unit"; meanwhile, small and medium-sized enterprises without such channels can only passively accept policy outcomes, further exacerbating structural inequality among businesses.
By evaluating Cook as "more suitable for today's Apple than Jobs," it reveals the type of entrepreneur Trump admires: not founders known for products and visions, but "political professional managers" who can navigate complex global supply chains, regulatory games, and political relationships. During the Jobs era, Apple's core story was about product disruption and brand emotion; in the Cook era, Apple's competitive advantage stems more from supply chain control, capital buybacks, tax and regulatory optimization, and fine-tuned negotiations with power centers—this aligns closely with Trump's own view of the world as a "network of transactions," explaining why he is willing to continuously reinforce Cook's narrative of "execution and phone diplomacy" in public.
From a broader historical perspective, this "president writing a recommendation letter for a big company CEO" reflects a cycle of re-binding tech giants with state power: during the late Cold War, big companies influenced policy more through industry associations and formal lobbying; today, American tech giants have grown large enough to engage directly in national strategy and industrial policy dialogues as companies, with their top managers participating. This structure not only makes the state more reliant on a few platform companies when facing geopolitical competition and technological games, but also grants these companies stronger negotiating positions on taxes, antitrust, supply chains, and labor policies. The story between Trump and Cook is not just a personal anecdote but a concrete example of the new political-economic relationships woven under the "platform company—personalized presidential system."