Tim Cook visited Good Morning America and said things

Well. That was annoying.

Good Morning America aired a short interview with Tim Cook on Tuesday. It’s a network morning show, and it was only five and a half minutes long. So I didn't expect questions such as “As you look back upon fifty years of Apple history, how significant was Apple’s early, foundational 43% stake in ARM for the direction of the company, as well as that of the industry as a whole?”

Nonetheless, I enjoy these things. Tim has had oodles of media training during, and prior to, his tenure as CEO. Despite it all, his sincere enthusiasm for Apple and its mission (as he perceives it) is still obvious.

He’s so polished and well-prepared, in fact, that if he stumbles during an interview, it makes me wonder if Tim was genuinely caught off guard. Is such a thing even possible? Check out the moment when the host asked Tim about rumors of his retirement. I could swear that Tim beachball-cursored for a moment. But he recovered and gave the correct, balanced answer.

“I’m not political.”

The annoying bit came when Tim was asked about his association with President Trump. The question followed a question about tariffs:

GMA: You were at the inauguration, last year, just feet from the President, you gave him a nice gift at the White House, you were at the screening of Melania, the documentary for the First Lady. There's so many people say you're really close to the administration, and you're being criticized for that. How do you separate the two, or are you able to?

Tim: Well, what I do is I interact on policy, not politics. I'm not a political person on either side. I'm not political. And so I'm kind of straight down the middle, and I focus on policy. And so I’m, I'm very pleased that the president and the administration is accessible to talk about policy.

Compare this to how Tim responded to that question about retirement:

GMA: And I read recently where you said you wanted to step back a little bit…

Tim: No, (laughs) I didn't say that. I haven't said that. There's a rumor going…

GMA: (laughs) Oh, that's a rumor! So there's no truth to that. You're gonna stick around for an unforeseen amount of time.

Tim: Well here's the way I look at it. I love what I do deeply. 28 years ago, I walked into Apple, and I've loved every day of it since. We've had ups and downs, but the people I work with are so amazing. They bring out the best in me, and hopefully I can bring out the best in them. And Michael, I can't imagine life without Apple.

When GMA asked Tim about retirement, he gave a polished, savvy answer. It could mean anything, and it could mean nothing. I’m sure that Tim can’t imagine life without Apple. But whether Apple’s planning to announce Tim’s retirement at WWDC this year, or he stays in the seat for so long that shareholders in 2096 AD start bellyaching about whether a head floating in a jar of bubbling purple liquid can still serve and inspire the current generation of thinkers and consumers…nobody’s going to sue anybody over this on-the-record remark.

But when Tim was asked about his relationship with President Trump, Tim didn’t parry it off at all.

He didn’t answer it directly, but he was hardly vague. He didn't outright lie, but his answer was shaky enough to make the operator of a lie detector wonder why the buzzer didn’t sound. They probably would have checked to make absolutely sure that the machine was calibrated correctly.

Apple has to maintain a good working relationship with the current president, whoever they are, no matter what year it is. Tim’s relationship with this White House has consistently sailed past doing just what’s necessary to maintain access and a productive ongoing relationship. Tim has been doing things that aren’t necessary…things that needlessly (and sometimes even obsequiously) support, serve, promote, and legitimize the current White House’s policies and objectives.

• Tim attended the swanky premiere of the documentary about the First Lady (itself funded, suspiciously, to the tune of tens of millions of dollars by a fellow huge tech company).
• Apple donated to the fund to demolish the East Wing of the White House and replace it with a new ballroom, despite the President's clear lack of authority to do so at his sole discretion.
• Tim encourages and enables the public perception — here in this GMA interview, in the Oval Office during that infamous (and appalling) Golden Tchotchke presentation ceremony, and elsewhere — that Apple’s massive commitment to, and investment in, US manufacturing is 100% due to the work of the current White House. Not the Trump administration plus the policy efforts of previous administrations plus changes in worldwide political, economic, and market conditions.

(Aside: This seems like a good spot for a disclaimer. I don’t even necessarily disagree with the Trump administration’s “less carrot, more stick” approach. Billion- and trillion-dollar industries moved factories overseas because they saw huge economic benefits in it. If a President is going to convince Tim and other CEOs to move some of those factories (and jobs) back to the US, they're going to have to use something more consequential than an appeal to their sense of patriotism and a chance to take some selfies in the Lincoln bedroom. I merely object to the narrative that this particular carrot and stick didn’t exist before 12:00 PM on Jan 20, 2025. It sure did. As did some of Apple's financial commitments, for which Tim is now giving Trump full credit. End of aside.)

Each of those actions was a political statement. I wish the list stopped at three, but no.

I’m not worried that Apple is positioning itself as a political arm of the White House. But the overall situation makes me worry about just where the hell Apple is going to be by the end of Trump’s second term. To one degree or another, Tim's extracurricular demonstrations of support add credibility to this White House as a whole. All of it. Including White House policies that have nothing to do with where the cover glass of the iPhone Pro comes from.

Tim can't possibly be unaware of this.

Therefore, it’s very annoying to me that Tim would try to claim that he’s politically-neutral. This statement flies in the face of everything Tim’s done since that day when pulled out his checkbook and asked Siri if there was one “T” or two in “Trump Vance Inaugural Committee, Inc.”

(This was still 2024. So Siri probably responded with “According to Wikipedia, ‘Trump’ is spelled with one ’T’.”)

Tim has said or done so many things that baffled, disappointed, and even angered me in the past year that I saw an ongoing need for a data visualization tool. I built it many months ago and it's finally time for its own Melania-style gala premiere:

I’m quite fond of Tim Cook

He deserves my respect…and he has it!

He also has my sympathy. I acknowledge that he’s in a bind. Tim's the head of a four trillion dollar company, and the employer of a couple of hundred thousand people. He isn’t free to say the things that he could be saying if he'd declined Steve's job offer and eventually left Hewlett-Packard's C-suite and retired to a quiet life as a boardmember of Nike, a booster of Duke University athletics, and the author of a popular Substack newsletter entitled "Tim's Bits."

And for all I know, maybe he sincerely believes himself to be politically-neutral in his public activities. I don’t have access to An Anonymous Source Familiar With Tim’s Thinking On This Matter.

All I'm offering here is my reaction as an outside observer. When I heard Tim say "I'm not political," I cringed. Stuff like this is exactly why I keep that widget in a safe and readily-accessible place.