President Trump on Thursday said he has a “little problem” with Apple CEO Tim Cook. The issue? The president is not a fan of the tech giant’s reported plan to produce all U.S.-bound iPhones in India, rather than in the States.
“I had a little problem with Tim Cook yesterday,” President Trump told the press while in Qatar. “I said to him: ‘Tim, you’re my friend. I treated you very good. You’re coming in with $500 billion. But now I hear you’re building all over India. I don’t want you building in India. You can build in India if you want to take care of India.’”
The president was referring to the $500 billion Apple said it would be investing in the U.S. earlier this year, including funding a new factory in Houston. He was also referring to Apple’s plan to shift more production to India and away from China, where most of its products are manufactured — a move that was expedited by the new tariffs President Trump announced last month.
President Trump said he called Cook and voiced his displeasure with the decision, before suggesting the Apple boss commit to investing more in U.S. production.
“I said to Tim, I said, ‘Tim, look, we’ve treated you really good. We put up with all the plants that you built in China for years. Now you got to build us. We’re not interested in you building in India. India can take care of themselves. They’re doing very well. We want you to build here.’”
He continued: “And [Apple is] going to be upping their production in the United States, Apple. So Apple is already in for $500 billion, but they’re going to be upping their production. So it will be great.”
Apple did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment. The company’s share price was down 1% in early trading on Thursday to $210.20 per share; it’s worth about $3.15 trillion and is currently the world’s third most valuable company, behind Microsoft and Nvidia.
President Trump’s Thursday comments stand out, considering he has seemed to have a pretty good relationship with Cook over the years. The CEO was on hand for the president’s inauguration in January, alongside other tech executives like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. And last year, the president said Cook has done an “amazing job” running Apple that could not even be topped by Steve Jobs.
