Trump details Cook call to ‘kiss my ass,’ and his dealmaking prowess

President Donald Trump praised Tim Cook in a lengthy Truth Social post on Tuesday, calling the outgoing Apple CEO an “incredible guy” and boasting that Cook had appealed to him when he needed help. 

“For me it began with a phone call from Tim at the beginning of my First Term,” Trump wrote. “He had a fairly large problem that only I, as President, could fix.”

Trump continued, “When I got the call I said, wow, it’s Tim Apple (Cook!) calling, how big is that? I was very impressed with myself to have the head of Apple calling to ‘kiss my ass.'” 

Representatives from Apple didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on Trump’s Truth Social post.

The post is emblematic of White House relationship dynamics under Trump. Business leaders have at times shown a willingness to indulge the president in order to advance their interests.

Daniel Weiner, director of the elections and government program at the Brennan Center for Justice, said Trump’s post was a view into his “nakedly transactional and also nakedly personalistic approach to governing.”

“It is this idea that the expectation is that CEOs of powerful companies should just call him up and offer homage, and in exchange get favors,” Weiner said. “It may be the way governance has happened in reality at various points in our history, but it’s certainly never been the ideal. And now it is kind of being extolled as the idea.”

Cook, who is stepping down after a nearly 15-year tenure, has been particularly effective at navigating the administration. He appealed directly to Trump during Trump’s first and second terms to shape policies on taxes, tariffs and other issues affecting the iPhone maker. 

The overtures often worked. Last year, Cook secured an exemption from Trump’s sweeping tariffs on phones, computers and chips, which are critical to Apple’s bottom line. Trump acknowledged that he “helped Tim Cook” with the move, though the White House has denied granting favors to benefit specific companies.   

“During my five years as President, Tim would call me, but never too much, and I would help him where I could,” Trump wrote on Tuesday. “Years latter [sic], after 3 or 4 BIG HELPS, I started to say to people, anyone who would listen, that this guy is an amazing manager and leader.”  

Cook, in some cases, went beyond phone calls to appeal to Trump. In August, he presented Trump with a 24-karat gold-and-glass statue bearing the words “Made in U.S.A.” as Apple announced an additional $100 billion commitment to American manufacturing. 

John Ternus, currently a senior vice president of hardware engineering, will take the helm at Apple on Sept.1 and Cook will assume the role of executive chairman. Apple hinted that it will continue to leverage Cook’s deft handling of politicians. 

“Cook will assist with certain aspects of the company, including engaging with policymakers around the world,” Apple said in a press release.

Tech executives from Amazon, Apple, Google and Meta have dined with Trump during his first and second administrations. They also donated millions to his inauguration fund and the president’s planned $300 million White House ballroom.

Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, spent more than a quarter of a billion dollars to put Trump back into the White House. He also took a position leading the Department of Government Efficiency, an effort by the Trump administration to slash federal capacity.

Despite a public clash over Trump’s “big, beautiful bill,” Musk, the world’s wealthiest individual, has stayed close to the president. He attended a White House dinner with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in November and reportedly joined a March phone call between Trump and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

A White House dinner with tech CEOs last September drew heavy scrutiny after attendees took turns praising Trump.

Following the event, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg was heard on a hot mic deferring to Trump on how to frame his company’s spending plans after he said the company would invest “at least $600 billion through ’28 in the U.S.” 

A few moments later, Zuckerberg said to Trump, who was seated next to him, “I’m sorry, I wasn’t ready to do our … I wasn’t sure what number you wanted to go with.”  

Zuckerberg later addressed the hot mic moment in a Threads post, saying he was confused at the time because Meta was weighing whether to invest “even more” in the U.S. beyond 2028.

“I wasn’t sure which number he was asking about, so I just shared the lower number through ’28 and clarified with him afterwards,” Zuckerberg wrote.

Intel took a page from Cook’s playbook after Trump pressed its CEO, Lip-Bu Tan, to resign following reports of Tan’s ties to China. After Tan went to the White House for a face-to-face meeting, Trump called him a “success.”

The following week, the U.S. government took a 10% stake in Intel through an $8.9 billion investment. That came from CHIPS Act grants that hadn’t been paid and government awards for semiconductor manufacturing.

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI and a donor to Biden’s 2024 reelection campaign, was a former Trump critic who changed his tune in 2025. He posted to X in January of that year: “watching @potus more carefully recently has really changed my perspective on him.”

Later in 2025, Trump issued a sweeping executive order preempting many state-level regulations of AI in what was a massive win for Altman and other industry leaders who had been urging such action.

Altman has flanked Trump at several high-profile AI announcements, including Trump’s Stargate joint venture and another project in the United Arab Emirates, which were both unveiled last year.

The startup CEO, who has maintained a close relationship with Trump in his second term, also scored a deal with the Pentagon to deploy advanced AI systems in classified environments, hours after OpenAI rival Anthropic was blacklisted by the administration. 

OpenAI co-founder and president Greg Brockman reportedly donated $25 million to Trump’s super PAC, MAGA Inc., in September.

Amazon and founder Jeff Bezos have cozied up to Trump during his second term in the White House, a sharp contrast from his first term, when Trump frequently attacked the e-retailer. The president often hurled insults at Bezos and his ownership of The Washington Post, as well as his tax record. 

The Trump administration last year praised Bezos, who appeared on stage at Trump’s inauguration, for his decision to revamp the Post’s editorial pages to focus on “personal liberties and free markets.” 

Last April, Trump said Bezos, who stepped down as Amazon’s CEO in 2021, was “terrific” and “a good guy” after the billionaire assured Trump that the company had no plans to display tariff-related surcharges on its website. 

Amazon has been criticized for its $75 million investment in “Melania,” a documentary about the first lady that was produced by Amazon MGM Studios and Melania Trump. Lawmakers called the move a “pay-to-play scheme” and questioned why the company paid far more than is usual for documentaries.

Amazon insisted it did nothing “improper,” according to Variety.

Last year, Paramount, which owns CBS, agreed to settle with Trump for $16 million after the president filed a lawsuit alleging an interview with Kamala Harris on “60 Minutes” was deceptively edited to make the then-Democratic presidential nominee look better.

At the time, the lawsuit was viewed by some at Paramount as a potential obstacle to the company’s sale to Skydance, which needed Trump administration approval.

Paramount at the time said the lawsuit was “completely separate from and unrelated to the Skydance transaction.”

ABC was widely rebuked after it agreed to pay $15 million toward Trump’s presidential library and $1 million in legal fees to settle a defamation lawsuit he brought against the network and anchor George Stephanopoulos. 

The lawsuit centered on an interview where the anchor said a jury had found Trump “liable for rape” in two lawsuits filed by the columnist E. Jean Carroll. 

In May 2023, Trump was found liable for sexually assaulting and defaming Carroll and ordered to pay $5 million. In January 2024, Trump was also found liable for defamation in a separate lawsuit brought by Carroll. 

In 2025, ABC, and its parent company Disney, drew more fire after suspending late-night host Jimmy Kimmel for comments he made in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination.

ABC and Disney were under pressure from Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr, a Trump appointee, as well as from Nexstar Media Group, a company that owns local ABC affiliates.

Nexstar — which was pursuing a merger with a rival, called Tegna, and needed FCC approval — had threatened to preempt Kimmel’s late-night show on the stations it owned, effectively blacking out the program in parts of the U.S.

The White House disputed that Kimmel was suspended because of pressure from the Trump administration

Kimmel’s suspension ended after less than a week.

Nexstar’s bid to merge with Tegna was approved by the FCC, though the acquisition was paused by a federal judge last week.

Correction: This story has been revised to reflect that the White House AI and crypto czar is David Sacks. A photo caption in a previous version misspelled Sacks’ name.