Apple CEO Tim Cook has sent his staff a personal memo following a backlash after he attended a VIP party with Donald and Melania Trump at the White House.
Cook, 65, went to a private premiere of the Melania documentary on Saturday night, just hours after the brutal death of ICU nurse Alex Pretti, who was shot dead by a federal agent in Minnesota.
The 79-year-old president said on Tuesday his administration was “going to deescalate a little bit” the situation in Minneapolis, where over 3,000 ICE and Border Patrol agents have been sent in a deliberately provocative anti-migrant surge.
Pretti, 37, was the second Minneapolis resident fatally shot by federal agents in the city this month after the killing of mother-of-three Renee Good, also 37, on Jan. 7.
Apple customers also vented about the CEO attending the private event for a $75 million vanity documentary funded by streaming rival Amazon, with some threatening to boycott Apple products or unsubscribe from their services.
“If you’re a CEO willing to sit in the company of this regime, your ‘shareholder value’ excuse feels pretty blood-soaked tonight,” conservative political strategist Rick Wilson posted on X after the news of Cook’s trip to a makeshift cinema at the White House.
Other CEOs who attended the Melania screening, which was also attended by the documentary’s disgraced director Brett Ratner, included Zoom’s Eric Yuan and AMD’s Lisa Su. The screening took place in a makeshift cinema, as Trump’s bulldozing of the East Wing to make way for his ballroom also flattened the historic White House Family Theater.
Cook’s staff memo also uses the same phrase about Minneapolis that Trump did, with the CEO also revealing he had a “good conversation” with the president this week.
“This is a time for deescalation,” Cook wrote. “I believe America is strongest when we live up to our highest ideals, when we treat everyone with dignity and respect no matter who they are or where they’re from, and when we embrace our shared humanity.”
Cook revealed he had spoken with Trump earlier this week to share his views on the “events in Minneapolis.”
“I had a good conversation with the president this week where I shared my views, and I appreciate his openness to engaging on issues that matter to us all,” he wrote. “I know this is very emotional and challenging for so many. I am proud of how deeply our teams care about the world beyond our walls.”
Another Trump-friendly CEO also weighed in the immigration raids.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who had made multiple trips to meet Trump at the White House, wrote a Slack message to employees.
“What’s happening with ICE is going too far,” Altman said. “There is a big difference between deporting violent criminals and what’s happening now, and we need to get the distinction right.”
Altman said he loved the U.S. and the values of democracy. “But part of loving the country is the American duty to push back against overreach,” he added.
“President Trump is a very strong leader, and I hope he will rise to this moment and unite the country. I am encouraged by the last few hours of response and hope to see trust rebuilt with transparent investigations,” Altman said.
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House and reps for Apple and OpenAI for comment.
Following Pretti’s death on Saturday, and in the wake of Good’s killing, over 450 employees from Google, Meta Platform and Open AI signed a letter urging their top executives to put pressure on the Trump administration to withdraw ICE agents from U.S. cities and to call out ICE-related violence.
