Did Tim Cook gift Trump $6K Mac Pro?
Apple CEO Tim Cook apparently gifted a new $5,999 Mac Pro to former president Donald Trump produced at the Texas factory in the US.
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San Francisco: Apple CEO Tim Cook apparently gifted a new $5,999 Mac Pro to former president Donald Trump produced at the Texas factory in the US.
According to Trump's final financial disclosure report, posted on Twitter by New York Times' journalist David Enrich, Tim Apple (as Trump once called him), gave him a $5,999 Mac Pro.
The computer is described as the very first Mac Pro produced at the Flex-run factory in Austin, Texas.
Not just Apple, Boeing and Ford also gifted Trump, according to the filing.
"It's unclear from this filing when these gifts were actually given. Who knows it maybe yesterday, maybe years ago?," Enrich tweeted.
In order to send a message to companies in the US to bring back manufacturing home and create more jobs, Trump in November 2019 visited Apple's Mac Pro plant in Austin, Texas.
"I would always talk about Apple, that I want to see Apple building plants in the United States, and that's what's happening. And Tim Cook is someone I greatly respect," Trump had told reporters.
Apple in September confirmed that its newly redesigned Mac Pro will be manufactured in Austin. The Texas plant, operated by electronics contract manufacturer Flex, assembles the Mac Pro, a high-end computer that starts at $6,000.
A previous model of the computer was made in the same facility starting in 2013.
During the tour, Trump posed with an engraved metal plate reading, "Designed by Apple in California. Assembled in USA".
Apple had asked Trump for more exemptions on tariffs on Chinese-made Apple Watches, iPods, iPhone components and other consumer products from the US government.