Morning Brew Daily
Apple Bets $500B on the US & Rich People Are Powering the Economy?
Tue, 25 Feb 2025
Episode 526: Toby and Ann discuss Apple’s latest announcement to invest $500B into US-based manufacturing and hiring 20,000 new jobs to bolster its AI efforts. Then, a study shows rich Americans are helping to power the US economy by continuing their spending habits while the rest are cutting back. Also, a major trial begins between Greenpeace and the company behind the Dakota Access Pipeline that could shift the landscape of the fossil fuel industry. Meanwhile, HBO’s ‘The White Lotus’ has had an impact on travel destinations such as Hawaii and Sicily. Will the same happen for Thailand? Finally, closing things out with a wrap of headlines. LinkedIn will even give you a $100 credit on your next campaign so you can try it yourself. Go to LinkedIn.com/MBD Terms and conditions apply. Only on LinkedIn ads. Subscribe to Morning Brew Daily for more of the news you need to start your day. Share the show with a friend, and leave us a review on your favorite podcast app. Check out https://linkedin.com/MBD for more! Listen to Morning Brew Daily Here: https://link.chtbl.com/MBD Watch Morning Brew Daily Here: https://www.youtube.com/@MorningBrewDailyShow Hear more from Ann on After Earnings: https://open.spotify.com/show/5I5q3LIg1ueDWoTM8AZsHQ?si=38da6cb59c874a5e Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
What are Apple’s plans for US investment?
The tech giant also announced plans to open a 250,000 square foot factory in Houston that they will develop with partners to make servers and power Apple intelligence. The announcement comes as tech companies try to make good with the Trump administration with tariffs from China looming.
Now, if you remember, the Trump administration did put out there a 10% tariff on all Chinese goods earlier this month. Now, the 20,000 employees that Apple plans to hire in the U.S. will be focused on research, engineering and software and AI development, the company says.
Meanwhile, in other Apple news, it is set to defend its DEI programs against critical investors during its shareholder meeting amid other major corporations axing its diversity pledges. Toby, there's an awful lot to unpack here, but it looks like CEO Tim Cook is deciding to spend dollars on building infrastructure on American soil to play ball with Uncle Sam. What are you thinking about this one?
I think that this is something that Tim Cook has done in the past. This is a playbook that Apple has run in the past. If you go back to Trump's first term back in 2018, they pledged to make... $350 billion in direct contributions to the U.S. economy. That was to play ball with Trump, because what you are seeing under this administration is that they're threatening these tariffs.
Tariffs have already been levied against China. And so Apple is saying our supply chain is very sensitive to these tariffs. And so we should try to kind of reshore some of those operations, bring some operations back to the United States. And in doing so, hopefully, skirt by and maybe avoid some of those tariffs that are being levied against countries where it develops most of its products.
So I think that for Trump, to him, this is another win for his tariff approach. He said in a speech to governors recently, Apple is going to build here instead because they don't want to pay the tariffs. And for Apple, it's just another instance of them moving and grooving around this administration saying, yes, we will play ball with you.
We will invest in America in order to try to avoid some of these punitive tariffs.
Yeah. So I think I feel like President Trump is definitely taking a victory lap on this one. But there are some parts of the street, Wall Street, Toby, that's asking, is this really a response to that or is just kind of a logical business step? So when we take a huge step back, there's been a huge movement with tech companies to try and, for example, get their chip manufacturing back to the US.
We've seen a ton of the big players talk about it. We've seen folks like Microsoft talking about investing more in the US, partly national security concerns, but partly also because, you know, in a world where there's so much uncertainty, it feels as though people want to build in their own backyard. But I don't know. I feel like Apple's all over the headlines at the moment. I was really stunned.
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