OP-ED: "He kissed my ass" — What Trump says about Cook reveals, above all, who he is

Fourteen years as CEO, including four spent navigating the turbulent waters of the Trump era

Tim Cook took the helm at Apple on August 24, 2011, six weeks before Steve Jobs’ death. He inherited a company that the whole world viewed as a doomed patient without its founder. He turned it into the world’s most valuable company by market capitalization—multiple times, on several occasions. He launched the Apple Watch, AirPods, Apple’s services, and the M1 and M4 chips. He weathered two Trump terms, the first global lockdown, a trade war with China, and threats of 25% tariffs on iPhones. He never cracked publicly. He bent but didn’t break.

The Cook-Trump relationship is a textbook case in corporate diplomacy under authoritarian pressure. Cook attended Trump’s reelection party. Apple invested several hundred billion in U.S. manufacturing projects—in part to defuse Trump’s criticism. Cook played along without ever compromising on what mattered most: Apple maintained its diversity and inclusion programs while the rest of Silicon Valley kowtowed. He stood his ground where Mark Zuckerberg capitulated, where other tech executives made pilgrimages to Mar-a-Lago with their hands full of checks.

Cook didn’t “kiss Trump’s ass.” He did what seasoned diplomats do when dealing with autocrats: he gave enough not to be crushed, and refused enough not to lose himself. That may be the very definition of class—giving the impression of yielding without ever truly doing so.

The Real Take on Trump’s “Tribute”

BFM Tech points this out, and rightly so: the most surprising thing about this post by Trump isn’t what he says—it’s that it exists at all. Trump doesn’t write tributes. Trump doesn’t write for others. The very fact that he took to the keyboard to bid farewell to Cook is documented, published proof that Cook has achieved something extraordinary: making himself indispensable enough to a president who hates depending on anyone, so that on the day of his departure, that president felt the need to mark his territory.

Because that’s what this post is, ultimately: a staking of territory. Trump isn’t paying tribute to Cook—he’s reminding John Ternus, Apple’s new CEO, and everyone else that the relationship between Apple and the White House goes through him. That he’s the one who “solved the problems.” That he’s the one to call. The tribute is a threat disguised as praise. This is nothing new. It’s his signature move.

When the Presidential Register No Longer Exists

Twenty years ago, the phrase “kissed ass” in a presidential statement would have sparked an institutional crisis. Hearings. Demands for apologies. Fiery editorials in the Washington Post and the New York Times. Today, it’s just one news item among many. BFM covers it with amused curiosity. Social media goes wild for two hours. Then moves on to something else. Normalization is complete.

This shift in tone is not insignificant. Presidential language has always been a marker of what the office permits. Nixon spoke privately in a way he could not speak in public—and that is precisely why the Watergate tapes were a scandal. Trump, on the other hand, has erased the boundary between the private and the public. What used to be confined to the locker room is now official policy. And we have collectively decided that this is acceptable.

What strikes me is the silence of the institution surrounding him. Where are the advisors? Where is the chief of staff who says, “Mr. President, perhaps not that phrasing”? Either they say nothing because they’re afraid, or they say nothing because they’ve given up. In either case, that silence carries more weight than the statement itself.

The collateral damage that no one measures

While we comment, share, and scroll past this post with a smirk—something is happening elsewhere. A twelve-year-old child reads that the President of the United States is describing his business dealings in scatological terms and that everyone finds it funny. A foreign leader notes that the leader of the world’s leading democracy no longer distinguishes between a locker room and an official statement. A young political science student learns that the dignity of office is optional.

That kind of damage can’t be measured. It doesn’t show up as a chart on Bloomberg. It quietly accumulates in the fabric of society, in what future generations come to regard as normal. And that is infinitely more serious than a poorly worded post on Truth Social.

An Engineer Faces a Political Arsonist

John Ternus, 51, an engineer by training, a former competitive swimmer, and head of hardware at Apple for years—he is taking the helm of the world’s largest company by market capitalization amid a geopolitical landscape that no one anticipated would unfold in this way. He is taking the helm of a ship that has learned to navigate with Cook at the helm, in waters where Trump is a constant factor.

Cook will remain chairman of the board. BFM notes that he will “undoubtedly” handle relations with the Trump administration. That’s a polite way of saying: someone has to continue managing the relationship with an unpredictable president, and that someone cannot be the new CEO, who must assert himself from day one. Cook becomes the buffer. The man who hangs up when Trump calls. The man who goes to Mar-a-Lago when necessary. It’s a thankless role. Cook has accepted it.

There is something almost moving about this transfer of power. Cook is handing over to Ternus the task of building products, markets, and innovations. And Cook is keeping for himself the most exhausting burden: dealing with a president who publicly describes you as someone who “kissed his ass”—and who thinks he’s paying you a compliment by saying so.

The Threat of Tariffs: The Issue That Hasn’t Gone Away

Trump threatened Apple with 25% tariffs if iPhones aren’t manufactured in the United States. Apple has invested hundreds of billions in U.S. manufacturing. Some components are now partially assembled on U.S. soil. But an iPhone entirely “made in the USA” remains a pipe dream—BFM has documented this in detail: the supply chains, skilled workers, and economies of scale that took forty years to build up in China cannot be recreated by presidential decree in eighteen months.

Ternus inherits this impossible equation: to produce enough in the United States to defuse Trump’s rhetoric without destabilizing the supply chains that determine an iPhone’s price. And to do so under the watchful eye of a president who can, on a Tuesday morning, issue a threat of 25% tariffs and, the following Wednesday, post an affectionate message on Truth Social. Consistency is not a variable in this equation.

The visit to the reelection party and the hundreds of billions invested

Tim Cook attended Trump’s reelection party. He contributed financially to it. Some cried foul, calling it a capitulation. It was an insurance premium. While Amazon, Google, and Meta were abandoning their DEI programs as quickly as a wet finger in the political wind, Apple stood by its own. Cook had paid for the right to stand firm where it really mattered.

It’s pure diplomatic logic. You make concessions on what costs little to resist on what costs everything. Attending a party costs an evening. Giving up on diversity and inclusion to please a president—that costs a company its soul. Cook did the math. He made his choice. And he survived. Fourteen years. With Steve Jobs as his shadow. With Trump as a hurricane. He emerged unscathed.

I’m not saying Cook is a saint. I’m saying he navigated waters where others sank without a sound. He kept his compass steady in a magnetic storm. And Trump, by posting that grotesque message, unwittingly paid him the greatest tribute possible: that of a powerful man who acknowledges he can’t do without you, even when he belittles you.

The Negotiator vs. the Orator

Tim Cook, 63, born in Mobile, Alabama. Son of a shipyard owner and a pharmacist. Computer engineer, MBA from Duke. He lacks Jobs’ flamboyance. He lacks Musk’s eloquence. He lacks Bezos’ ruthlessness in his darkest hours. What he does have is a rare ability to read the balance of power and turn pressure into leverage. He has transformed Apple into a services company as much as a products company. He steered the transition to Apple Silicon chips without disrupting the market. He kept Apple’s market capitalization above $3,000 billion while Trump held a gun to its head with his tariffs.

And now, Trump has posted on Truth Social saying that Cook “kissed his ass.” And in this grotesque, poorly written post—so self-centered it borders on caricature—there is an accidental truth: Cook had played his hand so well that even his most unpredictable adversary finds himself writing his hagiography without even realizing it.

We decided it was funny

And yet. This post is framed in a tone of curiosity. “A curious tribute,” reads the headline on BFM. Curious. Curious! There’s a semantic shift in that word that deserves to be pointed out. “Curious” is a cat opening a closet. “Curious” is a child taking apart a watch. What Trump wrote isn’t curious. It’s a documented degradation of the standard of dignity expected of an office. Calling it “curious” is normalizing it. It’s contributing to collective numbness.

I’m not saying that BFM is wrong to cover the story. I’m saying that the tone of the coverage—amused, detached, almost affectionate—reveals just how far we’ve gone in our acceptance of it. We’ve collectively decided that Trump is a phenomenon to be observed, not a problem to be addressed. And we reaffirm that decision every time we share the post with a laugh. You, too. Me, too.

And yet, there’s something more serious than the post itself. It’s the lack of an institutional response. In France, a president who used such language in an official statement would face a parliamentary question the very next day. In the United States in 2026, it’s the subject of a tech article. That’s a measure of something. I’m not sure I want to know exactly what.

Young executives watching and taking notes

Somewhere this morning, a 35-year-old young executive read Trump’s post. He saw that the president of the United States can describe a business relationship in scatological terms and get away with it. He saw that dignified language isn’t a prerequisite for exercising power. He saw that the crudest egocentrism can coexist with the highest office. And perhaps—perhaps—he took note. This isn’t paranoia. It’s behavioral modeling. Future leaders are watching what is tolerated. And they’re following suit.

And yet, someone should say that this is not normal. Not with performative outrage. With precision. This. Is. Not. Normal. A sitting president described, in a public statement, a business relationship with a world leader using a metaphor of sexual submission. This isn’t charm. It isn’t disarming candor. It’s a line crossed, documented, and archived for history.

The Presidency as a Personal Accessory

The U.S. presidency has a history. It has its own codes, rituals, and protocol. Lincoln signed his letters “Your obedient servant.” Roosevelt spoke softly and carried a large cane. Kennedy chose every word of his speeches months in advance. These presidents were no saints—some were liars, schemers, and manipulators. But they understood that the office was greater than themselves. That they were its temporary tenants, not its owners.

Trump has turned the office into a personal prop. Truth Social is not a presidential platform. It’s his phone. And on his phone, he writes what he thinks, using the same words he uses in his dining room at Mar-a-Lago. The distinction between the private and the public, between the personal and the institutional, between the intimate and the sovereign—that distinction has been shattered. And with it, part of what defined the office.

I think about how foreign diplomats must feel when they read this post. The ambassadors. The foreign ministers who have to draft their cables on the reliability of a strategic partner. What do they write? What can they write? And what does this cost, in the long run, to American credibility in the foreign ministries of the world?

The Long Memory of History

This post will be archived. In ten years, twenty years, fifty years, historians will read that the 47th president of the United States described, in a public message, a relationship with a business executive as implying that the executive was “kissing his ass.” They will note that this provoked no institutional reaction. No questioning. No appeal to the dignity of the office. They’ll note that it was “curious.” Funny, even. Shared, liked, commented on.

These historians will have a question that we were unable to answer: at what point did we decide that this was acceptable? What was the threshold below which we would have reacted? Was there even a threshold left? I’m not asking these questions for rhetorical effect. I’m asking them because they deserve an honest answer. And because honesty, in this case, is uncomfortable.

Fourteen years without ever publicly complaining about Trump

Tim Cook has never responded to a Trump attack with a public counterattack. Never. When Trump threatened him with a 25% tariff, Cook didn’t tweet. When Trump criticized Apple’s diversity programs, Cook didn’t speak out to directly contradict him. He took action. He stood his ground. He resisted through deeds, not words. That kind of discipline—that ability to take public criticism in stride and act discreetly—is rare.

And this morning, when Trump posted that message, Tim Cook said nothing. No tweet. No statement. No response. That may be the most eloquent response possible. The silence of someone who knows exactly his own worth, who doesn’t need the President of the United States to confirm it, and who also doesn’t need to defend himself against a statement he leaves for its author to bear alone. Dignity doesn’t shout. It endures.

There is something in Cook’s silence that resembles grace. Not religious grace—grace in the sense of composure in the face of adversity. He’s leaving. He’s built something immense. And he lets Trump post that message without responding, because responding would be to grant him an importance he doesn’t deserve at that moment. That may be the most beautiful lesson in leadership to come out of this entire episode.

A Counterpoint to the Horror of Prevailing Conformism

Amid all of this—the tariff threats, the grotesque post, the normalization of the lowest form of presidential language—Apple has nonetheless launched products that change lives. The AirPods Pro have enabled people with hearing impairments to hear better. iPhones are in the hands of 1.4 billion active users. The M4 chips enable creators, doctors, and researchers to do things they couldn’t do before. All of this, under Tim Cook, despite Trump.

There’s a quiet beauty in that. The beauty of what continues despite the noise. One man building while another destroys the very framework within which we build. This isn’t a victory. It isn’t a lesson in optimism. It’s simply a fact: some choose to build even when the environment makes building seem absurd. Cook has made that choice. For fourteen years. Every single day.

Collective Scrolling as a Political Act

You shared this article. Or you’re going to share it. Or you mentioned it to someone this morning with a smirk. In doing so, you’ve contributed to one of two things: either you’ve joined in the healthy outrage that calls out what’s wrong, or you’ve joined in the collective amusement that normalizes it. The line between the two is thinner than you might think.

Sharing a Trump post—even a critical one—with a sense of amusement gives it reach, an audience, and a presence in the algorithms. This is the fundamental trap of the Trump era 2.0: outrage and amusement produce the same result in terms of visibility. He figured that out before anyone else. We haven’t found the answer yet. And while we search, he keeps posting.

I include myself in that. I’m writing this article. It will be shared. It will feed Google’s and Meta’s algorithms. It will appear in search results for “Trump Cook licked.” I’m complicit in the very mechanism I’m denouncing. That’s the discomfort of honest commentary: acknowledging one’s own role in the problem. I prefer that to silence. But I wanted to say it.

What John Ternus Should Read Before His First Day

John Ternus is taking the helm at Apple in a world where the President of the United States can, with impunity, describe your predecessor as someone who “kissed his ass”—and call it a tribute. He’s inheriting a company that has survived this. That has even thrived in spite of it. That’s no small feat. It may even be the most important thing to take away from the Cook era.

A company’s strength is measured by what it can endure without breaking. Apple endured Jobs, the tyrannical genius. Apple withstood growth crises, controversies over working conditions in its factories, battles with Epic Games, and antitrust investigations. Apple withstood Trump. And Apple is still here. Ternus doesn’t need to be Cook. He needs to understand why Cook held on. The answer lies as much in what he refused to say as in what he built.

In the archives, forever

This post by Trump will be in Truth Social’s digital archives. It will be indexed. It will be cited in biographies of Cook, in studies of the Trump presidency, and in crisis communication courses at business schools around the world. It will be the document that proves that in 2026, the President of the United States could write anything, using any word, in any tone—and that the collective response was a smile.

Tim Cook, for his part, leaves behind a $3,000 billion empire, 160,000 employees, and the reputation of a man who stayed the course amid a perpetual storm. The record will show him as the CEO who stood his ground in the face of a dead Jobs and a living Trump. That’s no small feat. It’s not a curious thing. It’s an achievement that deserves better than a scatological post as its epitaph.

And yet, something keeps nagging at me. It’s not Trump’s post that weighs on me the most. It’s what it reveals about us—about our collective ability to be outraged for ten minutes, to share the post, and then to move on. About our resignation disguised as detached irony. About the fact that we all know something is wrong and we’re no longer quite sure how to say it without sounding naive. That resignation, I find, is more dangerous than Trump.

The final image: a phone sitting on a table

Somewhere in Mar-a-Lago, a 78-year-old man picked up his phone. He typed—probably in all caps—what he thought of Tim Cook. He hit “post.” Then he put his phone down. He moved on. He probably doesn’t know—and will never know—what that post says about him—not about Cook, not about Apple, not about tech—but about him.

What will remain, fifty years from now, is this: the president of the world’s leading democracy described a business relationship with Apple’s CEO using the kind of language you hear in soccer stadium locker rooms. And the world scrolled past it. And that was on Tuesday.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist