AAPL: Apple Stock Flat After Company Vows to Dish Out $500 Billion on US Investments

As recent history shows, when you meet with Trump, you announce big spending plans. That’s what Apple CEO Tim Cook just did.

🗽 Apple Shares Flat After Big News

• Apple stock AAPL was largely unfazed Monday and pre-market Tuesday after the iPhone maker unveiled big spending plans. Over the next four years, Apple pledged to dish out as much as $500 billion on domestic initiatives aimed at boosting its manufacturing capacity and promoting growth.
• The announcement dropped a few days after Apple CEO Tim Cook met with Donald Trump. It also included the promise of hiring around 20,000 workers.

🛒 Apple to Focus on US Manufacturing

• The efforts will revolve around expanding the company’s artificial intelligence capabilities as well as opening a manufacturing academy in Detroit. That’s also where the new jobs will be concentrated — Apple will be looking for engineers for “R&D, silicon engineering, software development, and AI and machine learning.” Apple now boasts a US workforce of nearly 3 million staff.
• Tim Cook praised the huge undertaking and said the big-ticket splurge will “help write an extraordinary new chapter in the history of American innovation.”

🔧 Is There Another Motive?

• Those who read between the lines will most likely conclude that the half a trillion dollars will help cushion the blow from Trump’s tariff hikes. Apple’s production comes predominantly from China, which already pays 10% extra on all imports into the US.
• It also falls in line with recent US-centric initiatives like Project Stargate — a $500 billion investment effort led by SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son, who’s been a vocal Trump supporter going back to Trump’s first term in the White House.