A few days after Apple's CEO met with President Trump, the company plans to spend $500 billion over the next four years, employ 20,000 people in the US and open a factory in Texas. He said he planned to make a machine that strengthens the push of the machine. For artificial intelligence.
“We are bullish about the future of American innovation and are proud to be able to build on years of US investment,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a statement. The company made similar small pledges during the Biden administration and Trump's first term, but it has not continued for some of those promises.
Cook met with Trump last week. After that meeting, Trump said Apple would shift production to the US: “They don't want to pay tariffs, so they'll build here instead,” he spoke to the governor's gathering. stated in.
Apple said the investment will begin manufacturing artificial intelligence servers at its new 250,000-square-foot facility in Houston next year. Created by Taiwanese electronics giant Foxconn, these servers will help expand data center capacity in North Carolina, Oregon, Arizona and Nevada.
Apple will continue to create most of the things it sells in Asia (iPhone, iPad, Mac). The overseas manufacturing footprint was the key to the fight with Trump even before he was first elected president in 2016. For many years, he has called on Apple to start building things with their damn computers in this country, not in other countries.”
As the first Trump administration tightened tariffs in China in 2019, Apple began moving some of its manufacturing to Vietnam, India and other Asian countries. However, it did not return any of its production to the United States.
Now, Apple is facing tariffs for the first time on the iPhone, facing tariff threats on other products made overseas. The majority of iPhones are made in China, with 10% US tariffs coming into effect this month on all Chinese products. Trump also collects imports from Canada, Mexico and other major trading partners, as well as threatens mutual tariffs on India.
Cook has worked with Trump in the past to help Apple avoid tariffs. The Trump administration avoided placing taxes on smartphones and removed the 2020 Apple Watch tariffs in response to Apple's demands.
Gene Munster, managing partner at Deepwater Asset Management, said he expects Apple to be able to escape tariffs again as he has pledged to invest $500 billion in the US.
The investment represents $39 billion in annual spending, he said, exceeding what Apple promised to spend in 2021 on US employees and suppliers. This is in line with the average annual increase in Apple's US investment to support growth since 2017. Additionally, the 20,000 jobs added by Apple coincides with the number of people they hire in the US over four years. , in the same way.
“This is a calculated trade-off in tariffs,” Munster said. “Trump made it clear. You have to show me some love. The question is, how much is it worth to Apple. And the answer is, they're not Rather than giving it to you, you want to spend this money on infrastructure.”
He said, “This is something you have to do to navigate the new world order, and Tim Cook is really good at it.”
Apple and the White House did not immediately have a comment.
Apple is the latest in a series of companies making investment commitments in the US after Trump's election. In December, Japanese technology company SoftBank pledged to invest $100 billion in the US and create 100,000 jobs. A month later, SoftBank, Openai and Oracle have pledged to spend $500 billion over the next four years on infrastructure computing for artificial intelligence.
Companies have complicated records of fulfilling their promises to Trump. In 2018, Apple pledged to build a campus in a new location as part of its $350 billion investment, but has not yet done so. That same year, partner Foxconn held grounds in Wisconsin on a $10 billion high-tech campus employing 13,000 people. Foxconn has built several buildings, but not the promised plants.
However, other companies such as US steel producers, Toyota and Nucor, continued on their promise to invest billions of dollars in building plants that employ thousands of people in Kentucky. .
In 2021, Apple said it would invest $1 billion in North Carolina in a new campus in the Raleigh area. We then suspended development of the project. Last year, it said it would develop the campus in the next few years.
Apple's pledge suggests that it's getting more serious about the AI business, Munster said. Rather than pouring tens of millions of dollars into data centers, as Microsoft, Amazon, Meta and Google did, Apple attacked its partnership with Openai.
To support an AI service called Apple Intelligence, the company has developed custom semiconductors for servers that are run alongside on a cloud network that Apple said is more private because it is difficult to store or access.
Apple servers built in Houston could accelerate the company's efforts to build AI delivery. Last year, Foxconn purchased land north of Houston. It is located next to one of its warehouses and says it will be used for artificial intelligence businesses.
The world's most advanced AI servers rely on complex networks of companies that have spent decades developing specialized tools and processes. It includes chips made by Taiwanese semiconductor manufacturers, and it produces most of the cutting-edge computer chips in Taiwan and relies on machines made by Dutch company ASML.
TSMC is also expanding its manufacturing footprint in the US. In 2020, the company said it would build a factory in Arizona. It quickly announced the second in a push from the Biden administration, boosting US chip manufacturing. But pushing back the start of production in Arizona, local workers said they lacked expertise in installing sophisticated equipment.
Shortly before taking office, President Joseph R. Biden Jr. completed his contract to award TSMC a $6.6 billion grant. The government said it plans to give TSMC tranche money as the company meets the milestone. Apple is the facility's biggest customer.
TSMC has already begun creating Apple chips in Arizona.
Apple described Monday's announcement as “the biggest spending commitment ever.” The $500 billion will be spent on manufacturing facilities, data centers and entertainment productions, the company said. Apple employs more than 150,000 people worldwide.
Monday's statement received a response from previous Apple announcements.
Four years ago, months after Biden's inauguration, Apple announced its “acceleration” of US investment, pledging to spend $400 billion over five years and add 20,000 jobs. In January 2018, during Trump's first term, the company said its “direct contribution to the US economy” would reach $350 billion over five years, creating 20,000 jobs over that period. I did.
Trump thanked Apple and Cook in a social media post on Monday. Trump said the move showed that the company “believes in what we're doing.”
