(Photo by MANDEL NGAN / AFP) (Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)
- Apple CEO Tim Cook gifted Trump a Mac Pro from a factory in Austin, Texas, worth $5,999.
- The former president and the Apple CEO enjoyed a close working relationship for most of Trump’s tenure, with Cook calling Trump directly.
- Recently, Cook denounced the “sad and shameful” attack on the Capitol.
Former president Donald Trump famously declined to release his tax returns – at least until the The New York Times did it for him. But his executive-branch financial disclosures, released Wednesday, provide a window into Trump’s assets and liabilities and a snapshot of several gifts he accepted during his time in office.
David Enrich of The New York Times pointed out on Twitter that one of the gifts disclosed was a Mac Pro from Apple CEO Tim Cook, valued at $5,999.
—David Enrich (@davidenrich) January 21, 2021
While other business leaders have distanced themselves from Trump, Cook enjoyed a relatively cozy relationship with the former president up until the attack on the Capitol earlier this month. In August 2019, Trump told Fox Business that Cook always called him directly, unlike other CEOs. Cook, when asked about his relationship with Trump, said he believes in “direct communication.”
He used this direct communication to lobby Trump to exempt Apple from Chinese import tariffs in 2019, and the company received tariff exemption approval on its Apple Watch and several other products, as The New York Times reported.
Trump misleadingly touted his close relationship with Apple as evidence of his manufacturing prowess as well. After a November 2019 tour of a Texas plant that manufactured Apple products, Trump tweeted "Today I opened a major Apple Manufacturing plant in Texas that will bring high paying jobs back to America."
However, as Insider reported, the facility had produced Apple products since 2012 and was owned by a company called Flex that contracted with Apple.
In recent weeks, Cook - who held a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton in 2016 - appears to have distanced himself from Trump in the wake of the attacks on the Capitol. On January 6, the CEO tweeted that the day's events had been "sad and shameful."
—Tim Cook (@tim_cook) January 7, 2021
In the executive disclosures, the gift from Cook is recorded as "Mac Pro Computer, the first created at the Flex Factory in Austin Texas." However, the claim that it's the first Mac Pro manufactured at the facility is dubious. As The Verge pointed out, the Flex factory in Texas first assembled a Mac Pro in 2013. The disclosure may be referring to the 2019 model of the Mac Pro, which saw a redesign.
Of the ten gifts Trump disclosed, the Mac Pro is the second-most valuable. He listed a "bronze statue depicting flag raising over Iwo Jima," worth $25,970, given by a representative of the Greatest Generation Foundation. He also reported four gifts of golf clubs, one from Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg, and an Ultimate Fighting Championship belt, courtesy of Colby Covington.
More broadly, these disclosures show that Trump's businesses took a hit during the pandemic. Insider reported Thursday that, despite a 13% revenue growth at Mar-a-Largo, the Trump International Hotel's revenues saw a decline, and that the majority of Trump golf courses suffered losses of 10% or more from 2019 to 2020.