Apple’s Tim Cook is among a group of CEOs being eviscerated for traveling to the White House on the same day Border Patrol agents killed a Veterans Affairs nurse in Minneapolis.
Cook, who gifted President Donald Trump a 24-karat gold desk ornament on his last White House visit, returned on Saturday to attend a dinner and screening of the first lady’s new documentary, “Melania.”
Fierce backlash, including calls to boycott Apple products, quickly followed.
“If you’re a CEO willing to sit in the company of this regime, your ‘shareholder value’ excuse feels pretty blood-soaked tonight,” posted the anti-Trump conservative political strategist Rick Wilson.
The other chief executives who attended the so-called “monsters’ ball” were billionaires Zoom’s Eric Yuan and AMD’s Lisa Su, The Hollywood Reporter revealed. Amazon’s Andy Jassy and New York Stock Exchange’s Lynn Martin were also on the invite list. The screening was in a temporary East Wing theater, since Trump demolished the historic White House Family Theater last year.
None of the quintet has spoken publicly about Alex Pretti, the nurse who federal agents brazenly gunned down earlier that morning. His death came three weeks after Renee Nicole Good was shot dead by an ICE agent in Minneapolis.
The latest homicide was captured on video from multiple angles. Those chilling clips show a swarm of agents pin Pretti to the ground, punch him in the head, and remove his legally carried handgun from his waistband seconds before shooting him dead.
Trump, 79, posted an incoherent rant about Minnesota after the killing, referring to Pretti not by name but as a “gunman,” despite videos showing he never brandished his weapon. Pretti’s final act was to attempt to help a woman who was shoved to the ground by agents.
“Tim Cook and Andy Jassy—and the rest—are accommodating an authoritarian who is presiding over a secret police force killing American citizens,” wrote David Corn, the Washington bureau chief of Mother Jones. “The blood of Renee Good and Alex Pretti is on the hands of those who enable Trump. Hope they like the movie.”
Countless others expressed disgust with the executives, particularly the Alabama-raised Cook, who is worth roughly $2.4 billion.
“F--k you @tim_cook, the day they shot in cold blood an innocent man,” wrote one user on X, receiving hundreds of likes. “Wtf are you thinking? What could possibly be so important to you? What a sick broken man you are.”
“Really undermining his CEO legacy, which is very sad,” wrote another.
The political reporter Nick Field added, “The Democratic Party shouldn’t welcome Tim Cook to another fundraiser.”
Some Apple customers were so disgusted, they said they would move their business away from the tech giant.
“Apple CEO Tim Cook is at the White House today for a viewing of the Melania movie,” wrote a Threads user. “Time to consider an Android? #MoneyTalks.”
Another Threads user, who says he is an Apple shareholder, posted an email he sent to Apple after Cook’s dinner and a movie with the Trumps.
“I’m a long-time Apple shareholder. Up until now, have been a proud Apple shareholder and supporter of Tim Cook,” the email reads. “Our CEO is attending an event at the White House on the same day that the Administration executed a US citizen. These are difficult times for CEO’s to navigate. I understand. But the moral position has become black and white. I’ve long told people that Tim Cook is the best CEO in America. Tonight he has shamed us all.”
