The reason why they don't amount to anything is because there is usually no follow-up and accountability.
In China,after such an announcement ,a CCP official(whose promotion hinges on successful implementation of the investment)would have been assigned to Apple to see to it that the project is completed
Those announcements were part of Apple's initiative to build/assemble certain Mac Pros in Texas.
The idea is to do it on a high-margin, low-volume product so that any hiccups can be absorbed in the accounting and aren't as impactful to millions of customers. Hiccups like a dearth of US suppliers of subcomponents.
If a North American customer purchases a Mac Pro its final assembly occurs in Austin, Texas.
According to local media and government reports Apple has spent over a billion dollars in Austin and directly employed about 10,000 new permanent workers so far.
If you count local suppliers, the total is higher.
You can click on "See more dates" and select 2020 to see that in two years that site went from "empty lot" to "hundreds of thousands of square feet and thousands of workers".
The Flextronics facility about a mile-and-a-half to the south is another chunk of cash.
Additionally, many, MANY, components from audio codecs to SoC cores to sheets of glass used in Apple products are made in the US and exported for integration into products that are assembled overseas.
If you think 5 years from announcement to construction is a long time, I've been working about that long on a committee to build a tiny 4-bay fire station. It isn't about money, we have the money and infinite money wouldn't really change anything. It's about permits, contractor availability, and subsystem/subcomponent lead times. The diesel fume extraction system installers had a year-long backlog of work alone.
If you're waiting for the iPhone to be built in the US, you're going to be waiting for a long time, perhaps an infinitely long time. Other, higher-margin lower-volume, products? That's more likely.
I'm more familiar than most with how difficult it is to build things in the US, because I build satellites for a living and fire stations as a civic duty.
Fair point. But one difference is that Trump 1.0 was still full of globalist neocons while Trump 2.0 is full of true believers. There is follow-through this time. We now have the highest tariffs since 1910, which was inconceivable a decade ago.
The landscape has also changed. In 2018, Apple could wait out Trump hoping to get the Bush GOP back. That party is dead. It will still be corporate friendly, but not on immigration or trade. Big Ag couldn’t even get carved out of the immigration raids. The Clinton Democratic Party is dead too. What’s the odds that either Vance 2028 or AOC 2028 are going to let Apple off the hook on commitments?
I would love to see a list of commitments that corporations and foreign bodies have made to investment in the US, and how they've actually played out over time.
They made a similar commitment in 2018 [1] and 2021 [2], but I can't find any info about whether they actually followed through and whether the projected job numbers were accurate.
Let's appreciate that Tim Cook traveled to the White House to present President Trump with literal gold. Cook said it was "designed for you" when presenting it to Trump.
Top tier fidelity here, like in days of old, the Duke of Apple has traveled far to present King Trump with tribute.
> Today, Apple partners with thousands of suppliers across all 50 states, supporting more than 450,000 supplier and partner jobs. In the next four years, Apple plans to directly hire 20,000 people in the U.S. — the vast majority focused on R&D, silicon engineering, software development, and AI and machine learning.
So the new jobs they're creating _won't_ be in manufacturing.
In isolation, this might be a positive. But watching one of the world’s richest multinationals do this primarily in response to an autocratic, authoritarian regime is neither a good look nor what we should hope for as an example of how to influence corporate decisionmaking.
I agree that seeing the executive branch's authority continue to swell is not good for our democracy, but corporations (and specifically Apple) offshoring all their labor to developing nations has been viewed as a huge negative for ~30 years?
Any amount of returning manufacturing here, returning power to the middle class by increasing the demand for labor and stopping the exploitation of foreign workers is a good thing. I can't stand listening to him talk, but if iPhones aren't reliant on slaves mining cobalt and 13 year olds working 12 hours a days I will consider that a win.
> In isolation, this might be a positive. But watching one of the world’s richest multinationals do this primarily in response to an autocratic, authoritarian regime is neither a good look nor what we should hope for as an example of how to influence corporate decisionmaking.
Ironically, your comment is double-bladed.
This has likely been in the works from when China shook Apple down and the timing has a nice upside that it also pacifies His Orangeness(tm).
An American president using the bully pulpit (as Teddy Roosevelt so fondly called it) to expand jobs and investment in America is the president doing his actual job.
Of course Apple didn't do it on their own accord, there was way too much profit to be made from outsourcing to China. Everyone else was doing it, why not also the richest company on earth?
Cook is getting significant considerations on imports and offering Trump PR with zero obligation. Maybe they invest, maybe they don't, maybe they just do what they were going to do anyway.
I totally agree with you about the motivations... and I can't speak to how many long term jobs will come out of this.
But if this even gives us some chance to jolt our manufacturing sector back, will we start to gain some momentum? Even if it's mostly using automation. Will it help to reduce our reliance on China?
I doubt it will in the same way that it's been extremely hard for other countries to replicate the US momentum in R&D.
People have pointed out that brands all put rainbows on their public docs for pride month. But not in Islamic countries and much less with Trump in power etc.
This is just the same effect but for US nationalists no?
Actual decisions and spending/investment etc will continue to be driven by economics. But PR is about who you want to reassure/appease/curry favour with. And the two are basically independent.
Downstream assembly factories attract component manufacturers because of lower transport costs and shorter delivery times, which can lead to network effects. (Remember why Intel wanted to build more foundries in China a few years ago?) That's the success formula of Shenzhen, for example.
He is the CEO of a company. A president has been elected and will be in office for next 4years still, during which Apple may need his help with issue faced with foreign governments.
It's not spineless, it's his job to act in the interests of the company
Apple’s announcement should be welcomed as a tangible demonstration of corporate accountability in the age of offshore tax minimisation and digital opacity. Rather than simply repurchasing stock or warehousing profits abroad, Apple is deploying capital to grow its US footprint, support domestic suppliers and invest in technological infrastructure.
The program’s breadth also deserves recognition. It includes manufacturing partnerships, data centres, clean energy, and support for educational and community initiatives. This is not PR fluff. Apple’s prior commitments funded chipmaking in Arizona, new engineering hubs and 5G innovation. The expansion builds on that trajectory.
Critics may argue Apple is acting in self-interest. So be it. Public policy should align incentives such that private benefit also serves the public good. In this case, job creation, supply chain resilience, and regional development in states like Iowa and Oregon are clear wins.
Of course, Apple’s global tax practices remain a fair target. But criticising every constructive move on that basis alone risks undermining the very kind of behaviour governments should encourage: strategic reinvestment, not financial engineering.
This is a large, measurable, and multi-year commitment. It should be acknowledged as such.
> Apple’s announcement should be welcomed as a tangible demonstration of corporate accountability in the age of…
They brought a 24k gold trophy for the president. That’s the tangible demonstration here.
> This is not PR fluff.
> Critics may argue Apple is acting in self-interest.
This is PR fluff and, as a critic, I don’t think it’s in anyone’s best interest.
> This is a large, measurable, and multi-year commitment. It should be acknowledged as such.
How does this compare to the large measurable multi year commitments from the last few administrations that never materialized? What about the one from a few months ago the ago?
The comment below yours by njovin represents the likely truth: that this is another empty promise designed to carry Apple through to the end of this term before they can call the whole thing off with only mild losses.
It's too bad startups can't invest $600B in local manufacturing to get a tariff carve out, right? Oh well, not like entrenching one of the largest companies on Earth even further could be damaging for the economy, competitiveness, or consumers.
> This is a large, measurable, and multi-year commitment. It should be acknowledged as such.
We'll see. The multi-year nature can be seen as a feature or a bug. The benefits are delivered today: tariff carve outs. The promises can be scaled back at any time in the future. We're dealing with what is likely to be an incredibly anomalous economic... "policy". It is likely to not stick around once the current administration leaves, and perhaps even during the course of the current administration. If tariffs go away in the future, then the threat (and reward) disappear along with it. We'll see how incentivized Apple is to keep these commitments under those conditions if they come about.
> Of course, Apple’s global tax practices remain a fair target. But criticising every constructive move on that basis alone risks undermining the very kind of behaviour governments should encourage: strategic reinvestment, not financial engineering.
It should always go without saying that there are ways to go about this that don't involve policies that hurt both consumers and small companies alike. The CHIPS act was one example, and the benefits were arguably more evenly distributed (vs. a set of investments that probably disproportionately help the existing market leader). This administration went out of their way to dismantle that. No conversation about this should leave that out.
> Critics may argue Apple is acting in self-interest. So be it.
Neither this administration nor Apple seem to really care much about this. This matters for the reasons above: it doesn't make this deal particularly resilient. Both parties got what they wanted immediately: Apple got to avoid an unexpected roadblock (and perhaps gained an advantage over other companies), and Trump gets to look like he got this great deal. So what's to keep it around? This is why aligning actual long term incentives matters, vs. this short term nonsense. A congressional bill for example at minimum has constituents who will benefit or punish the representative at the polls. But we don't even need to get that technical, if neither party cares or believes in this at all, then it is of course set up to default fail. This is not a trivial undertaking we are talking about. It's not just a matter of getting the right parties to invest. You are asking to dramatically change a set of pipelines that have been established over the course of decades and regularly receive equivalent amounts of investment. If you actually want this to happen, you should care about how it happens, and you should realize it matters if this is made up entirely of cynical players with no real demonstrable upside in the end result.
This is neither accountability nor public policy, it’s bullying by a weak man who wants desperately to be seen as strong, who changes his mind on a whim, and who rarely follows through.
Even if they do actually follow through with it, it'll only be "assembly".
Also people calling for tariffs do not understand them, nor do they understand that; yes, China manufactures a shitload of iPhones, and Chinese companies make a small profit on doing so - a deal with Apple is very lucrative. But the majority of the profit made from selling an iPhone goes to Apple, aka an AMERICAN company. For iPhones sold ALL over the world.
Waaaa, I have to import my iPhone from China to America; the profits are still going back to America, perhaps every country that iPhones are sold in needs to put a tariff on nonlocally made products from a nonlocal company to match the absolute stupidity of Trump's logic.
TSMC is building factories in America, and Apple is the biggest customer so far. It's a similar situation for rare earth magnets. So, not just "assembly".
As to tariffs in general, you should learn about something called the "trade deficit". The other countries, such as China, already had tariffs on American products, America is simply reciprocating. If tariffs are so stupid, why do so many countries use them I wonder?
One beneficial side effect of tariffs is bringing strategic manufacturing onshore, such as...semiconductor manufacturing.
Like it or not, the US economy will grow explosively as a result of the current economic policies, after an adjustment period.
How does this square with the Indian tariffs? Are they going to entirely abandon all of their efforts to shift to India from China and pivot to America instead? Or is this in addition to those efforts as a plea for the current administration to drop India’s tariffs?
Either way, India seems like it has once again miscalculated who to side with on the world stage. Russian oil may be cheap, but Russia hasn’t been a reliable ally to any country in the past 30 years, and now India looks set to lose significant investments from the US.
I would be curious to understand better if gay is the trigger for Apple. Is it because when they assess the various geopolitical dynamics that they conclude that this is the best thing for the company? Or did they get strong incentives (whether carrots or sticks) and that is why they’re doing it.
xnx|6 months ago
2017: "Apple promised to give US manufacturing a $1 billion boost"
2018: "Apple will make $350 billion contribution to U.S. economy and promised to create 20,000 jobs"
2021: "Apple commits $430 billion in US investments over 5 years"
From https://bsky.app/profile/bgrueskin.bsky.social/post/3lvqqyd4...
AlecSchueler|6 months ago
https://www.theverge.com/news/737757/apple-president-donald-...
MaxPock|6 months ago
os2warpman|6 months ago
They did amount to something.
Those announcements were part of Apple's initiative to build/assemble certain Mac Pros in Texas.
The idea is to do it on a high-margin, low-volume product so that any hiccups can be absorbed in the accounting and aren't as impactful to millions of customers. Hiccups like a dearth of US suppliers of subcomponents.
If a North American customer purchases a Mac Pro its final assembly occurs in Austin, Texas.
According to local media and government reports Apple has spent over a billion dollars in Austin and directly employed about 10,000 new permanent workers so far.
If you count local suppliers, the total is higher.
You can see some of the billion dollars here: https://maps.app.goo.gl/dHy52bEoWizDC5qz5
You can click on "See more dates" and select 2020 to see that in two years that site went from "empty lot" to "hundreds of thousands of square feet and thousands of workers".
The Flextronics facility about a mile-and-a-half to the south is another chunk of cash.
Additionally, many, MANY, components from audio codecs to SoC cores to sheets of glass used in Apple products are made in the US and exported for integration into products that are assembled overseas.
If you think 5 years from announcement to construction is a long time, I've been working about that long on a committee to build a tiny 4-bay fire station. It isn't about money, we have the money and infinite money wouldn't really change anything. It's about permits, contractor availability, and subsystem/subcomponent lead times. The diesel fume extraction system installers had a year-long backlog of work alone.
If you're waiting for the iPhone to be built in the US, you're going to be waiting for a long time, perhaps an infinitely long time. Other, higher-margin lower-volume, products? That's more likely.
I'm more familiar than most with how difficult it is to build things in the US, because I build satellites for a living and fire stations as a civic duty.
It's hard.
rayiner|6 months ago
The landscape has also changed. In 2018, Apple could wait out Trump hoping to get the Bush GOP back. That party is dead. It will still be corporate friendly, but not on immigration or trade. Big Ag couldn’t even get carved out of the immigration raids. The Clinton Democratic Party is dead too. What’s the odds that either Vance 2028 or AOC 2028 are going to let Apple off the hook on commitments?
njovin|6 months ago
They made a similar commitment in 2018 [1] and 2021 [2], but I can't find any info about whether they actually followed through and whether the projected job numbers were accurate.
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/17/apple-announces-350-billion-...
[2] https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/apple-announces-430-billio...
lelandfe|6 months ago
> Foxconn will reduce its planned investment to $672 million from $10 billion and cut the number of new jobs to 1,454 from 13,000
TheAlchemist|6 months ago
Funniest one is Masayoshi Son announcements, in 2016 - $50B for 50k jobs, and in 2024 - $100B for 100k jobs !
2016: https://www.cnbc.com/2016/12/06/trump-says-softbank-will-inv...
2024: https://www.cnbc.com/2024/12/16/softbank-ceo-to-announce-100...
Funny thing here is, that he doesn't even have that money. But who cares these days...
lokar|6 months ago
Copenjin|6 months ago
Buttons840|6 months ago
Top tier fidelity here, like in days of old, the Duke of Apple has traveled far to present King Trump with tribute.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/08/07/tim-...
jjulius|6 months ago
insane_dreamer|6 months ago
So the new jobs they're creating _won't_ be in manufacturing.
Nice PR headline though.
assword|6 months ago
archagon|6 months ago
https://www.theverge.com/news/737757/apple-president-donald-...
nxobject|6 months ago
Arubis|6 months ago
ericmcer|6 months ago
Any amount of returning manufacturing here, returning power to the middle class by increasing the demand for labor and stopping the exploitation of foreign workers is a good thing. I can't stand listening to him talk, but if iPhones aren't reliant on slaves mining cobalt and 13 year olds working 12 hours a days I will consider that a win.
bsder|6 months ago
Ironically, your comment is double-bladed.
This has likely been in the works from when China shook Apple down and the timing has a nice upside that it also pacifies His Orangeness(tm).
chrisco255|6 months ago
Of course Apple didn't do it on their own accord, there was way too much profit to be made from outsourcing to China. Everyone else was doing it, why not also the richest company on earth?
unknown|6 months ago
[deleted]
mensetmanusman|6 months ago
tootie|6 months ago
WarOnPrivacy|6 months ago
...it gifts authoritarian power to autocrats and fully guarantees more authoritarian behavior.
unknown|6 months ago
[deleted]
theultdev|6 months ago
[deleted]
atonse|6 months ago
But if this even gives us some chance to jolt our manufacturing sector back, will we start to gain some momentum? Even if it's mostly using automation. Will it help to reduce our reliance on China?
I doubt it will in the same way that it's been extremely hard for other countries to replicate the US momentum in R&D.
But one can hope.
unknown|6 months ago
[deleted]
insane_dreamer|6 months ago
And Intel's $28B factory in OH?
PR (and golden gifts (bribes?)) is easy.
LatteLazy|6 months ago
People have pointed out that brands all put rainbows on their public docs for pride month. But not in Islamic countries and much less with Trump in power etc.
This is just the same effect but for US nationalists no?
Actual decisions and spending/investment etc will continue to be driven by economics. But PR is about who you want to reassure/appease/curry favour with. And the two are basically independent.
unknown|6 months ago
[deleted]
energy123|6 months ago
Onshoring assembly of consumer electronics despite low unemployment - bad
It's good the correct subset of manufacturing is being onshored.
palmotea|6 months ago
Why? Especially considering military systems are looking increasingly like masses of consumer electronics (e.g. FPV drones).
typ|6 months ago
Jyaif|6 months ago
cfyohyuityun|6 months ago
myvoiceismypass|6 months ago
v5v3|6 months ago
It's not spineless, it's his job to act in the interests of the company
pcunite|6 months ago
nelox|6 months ago
The program’s breadth also deserves recognition. It includes manufacturing partnerships, data centres, clean energy, and support for educational and community initiatives. This is not PR fluff. Apple’s prior commitments funded chipmaking in Arizona, new engineering hubs and 5G innovation. The expansion builds on that trajectory.
Critics may argue Apple is acting in self-interest. So be it. Public policy should align incentives such that private benefit also serves the public good. In this case, job creation, supply chain resilience, and regional development in states like Iowa and Oregon are clear wins.
Of course, Apple’s global tax practices remain a fair target. But criticising every constructive move on that basis alone risks undermining the very kind of behaviour governments should encourage: strategic reinvestment, not financial engineering.
This is a large, measurable, and multi-year commitment. It should be acknowledged as such.
vineyardmike|6 months ago
They brought a 24k gold trophy for the president. That’s the tangible demonstration here.
> This is not PR fluff. > Critics may argue Apple is acting in self-interest.
This is PR fluff and, as a critic, I don’t think it’s in anyone’s best interest.
> This is a large, measurable, and multi-year commitment. It should be acknowledged as such.
How does this compare to the large measurable multi year commitments from the last few administrations that never materialized? What about the one from a few months ago the ago?
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/02/apple-will-spend-more...
tacker2000|6 months ago
There is no grand strategy here and I assure you after he is gone nobody will even know if this pledge was followed through.
bryant|6 months ago
unknown|6 months ago
[deleted]
tolmasky|6 months ago
> This is a large, measurable, and multi-year commitment. It should be acknowledged as such.
We'll see. The multi-year nature can be seen as a feature or a bug. The benefits are delivered today: tariff carve outs. The promises can be scaled back at any time in the future. We're dealing with what is likely to be an incredibly anomalous economic... "policy". It is likely to not stick around once the current administration leaves, and perhaps even during the course of the current administration. If tariffs go away in the future, then the threat (and reward) disappear along with it. We'll see how incentivized Apple is to keep these commitments under those conditions if they come about.
> Of course, Apple’s global tax practices remain a fair target. But criticising every constructive move on that basis alone risks undermining the very kind of behaviour governments should encourage: strategic reinvestment, not financial engineering.
It should always go without saying that there are ways to go about this that don't involve policies that hurt both consumers and small companies alike. The CHIPS act was one example, and the benefits were arguably more evenly distributed (vs. a set of investments that probably disproportionately help the existing market leader). This administration went out of their way to dismantle that. No conversation about this should leave that out.
> Critics may argue Apple is acting in self-interest. So be it.
Neither this administration nor Apple seem to really care much about this. This matters for the reasons above: it doesn't make this deal particularly resilient. Both parties got what they wanted immediately: Apple got to avoid an unexpected roadblock (and perhaps gained an advantage over other companies), and Trump gets to look like he got this great deal. So what's to keep it around? This is why aligning actual long term incentives matters, vs. this short term nonsense. A congressional bill for example at minimum has constituents who will benefit or punish the representative at the polls. But we don't even need to get that technical, if neither party cares or believes in this at all, then it is of course set up to default fail. This is not a trivial undertaking we are talking about. It's not just a matter of getting the right parties to invest. You are asking to dramatically change a set of pipelines that have been established over the course of decades and regularly receive equivalent amounts of investment. If you actually want this to happen, you should care about how it happens, and you should realize it matters if this is made up entirely of cynical players with no real demonstrable upside in the end result.
szundi|6 months ago
[deleted]
Flatcircle|6 months ago
wat10000|6 months ago
fennecfoxy|6 months ago
Even if they do actually follow through with it, it'll only be "assembly".
Also people calling for tariffs do not understand them, nor do they understand that; yes, China manufactures a shitload of iPhones, and Chinese companies make a small profit on doing so - a deal with Apple is very lucrative. But the majority of the profit made from selling an iPhone goes to Apple, aka an AMERICAN company. For iPhones sold ALL over the world.
Waaaa, I have to import my iPhone from China to America; the profits are still going back to America, perhaps every country that iPhones are sold in needs to put a tariff on nonlocally made products from a nonlocal company to match the absolute stupidity of Trump's logic.
ElectronCharge|6 months ago
TSMC is building factories in America, and Apple is the biggest customer so far. It's a similar situation for rare earth magnets. So, not just "assembly".
As to tariffs in general, you should learn about something called the "trade deficit". The other countries, such as China, already had tariffs on American products, America is simply reciprocating. If tariffs are so stupid, why do so many countries use them I wonder?
One beneficial side effect of tariffs is bringing strategic manufacturing onshore, such as...semiconductor manufacturing.
Like it or not, the US economy will grow explosively as a result of the current economic policies, after an adjustment period.
jimbob45|6 months ago
Either way, India seems like it has once again miscalculated who to side with on the world stage. Russian oil may be cheap, but Russia hasn’t been a reliable ally to any country in the past 30 years, and now India looks set to lose significant investments from the US.
v5v3|6 months ago
So India/ China can supply other markets?
andsoitis|6 months ago
I would be curious to understand better if gay is the trigger for Apple. Is it because when they assess the various geopolitical dynamics that they conclude that this is the best thing for the company? Or did they get strong incentives (whether carrots or sticks) and that is why they’re doing it.
browningstreet|6 months ago
Fade_Dance|6 months ago
Apple has been directly threatened with tariffs by Trump. Currently they are exempt from the India tariffs.
The capex commitment in the US is a transactional agreement to ensure that these exceptions are kept.
al_borland|6 months ago
croes|6 months ago