Apple today announced a plan to spend $500 billion in the United States in the next four years, including in jobs, suppliers, and building servers. This comes as Apple — like most consumer electronics companies — faces down a threat of tariffs from importing goods and components from China and other countries from President Donald Trump.
The company says this is its biggest US-focused spending plan to date. Beyond jobs, it includes paying US-based suppliers, including factories owned by Texas Instruments and TSMC. Apple will build servers for Apple Intelligence at a facility in Houston, and claims it will increase its Advanced Manufacturing Fund and establish an "academy" in Michigan to "train the next generation of U.S. manufacturers, and grow its research and development investments in the U.S. to support cutting-edge fields like silicon engineering."
Following a meeting between Trump and Apple CEO Tim Cook last week, Trump said that Cook was ceasing plants in Mexico and would increase its spend in the US. “They don’t want to be in the tariffs,” he told U.S. state governors. It's unclear which Mexican facilities Trump was referring to, though Apple supplier Foxconn has some plants there, Bloomberg points out.
The Trump administration has put a 10% tariff on goods imported from China and has mentioned, but not yet enacted, a 25% tariff on chips.
Apple made a similar announcement in 2018 during the first Trump administration, including jobs and a campus in Austin, Texas. It's unclear which, if any, of the investments discussed recently were previously planned prior to Trump entering office for his second term. During the first term, Trump took credit for Apple's Mac Pro plant run by a contractor, which was already in operation.
In 2021, Apple announced more U.S.-based spending plans, including a $430 billion investment including a North Carolina campus, as well as jobs in silicon engineering and research and development. (That campus is currently on pause).
"We are bullish on the future of American innovation, and we’re proud to build on our long-standing U.S. investments with this $500 billion commitment to our country’s future,” Cook said in a press release. Notably, the hiring commitments come at a time when much of big tech is going through layoffs.
Cook's plans for US investments helped Apple during Trump's first terms, earning it exceptions from some tariffs on its biggest devices, including the iPhone. This time around, it appears other tech executives, including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon chairman and former CEO Jeff Bezos, are trying to follow Cook's playbook by cultivating relationships with the president.
