Trump’s Love-Hate Relationship With Big Tech
Apple announced on February 24 that it will spend and invest more than $500 billion in the U.S. over the next four years. President Donald Trump took to social media to credit his administration for the announcement. Without his policies, the president said, Apple “wouldn’t be investing ten cents.” However, Trump’s antitrust and trade policies could be the very thing that prevents other large firms from making similar announcements.
Apple’s plans include a 250,000-square-foot server manufacturing facility in Houston, which will power Apple Intelligence, its proprietary generative AI; doubling its U.S. Advanced Manufacturing Fund from $5 billion to $10 billion; hiring 20,000 Americans; and opening an Apple Manufacturing Academy in Michigan to help businesses implement AI and smart manufacturing techniques. A financial analysis conducted by The Wall Street Journal concludes that “Apple’s announced figure is in line with what one might expect the company to be spending anyway.”
Trump touted Apple’s domestic spending commitment nonetheless, and Vice President J.D. Vance chastised European leaders for “tightening the [regulatory] screws on U.S. tech companies with international footprints” at the Paris AI Summit earlier this month. At the same time, Trump’s Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Department of Justice (DOJ) are perpetuating the presumptively anti–Big Tech antitrust framework implemented under Joe Biden.
Andrew Ferguson, Trump’s confirmed chair of the FTC, announced a public inquiry into Big Tech censorship on Thursday. The FTC’s request
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