Leah Millis/Reuters
- President Donald Trump met with Apple CEO Tim Cook and other members of his American Workforce Advisory board on Wednesday.
- A video clip shows Trump appearing to address Apple’s CEO as "Tim Apple."
There’s Michael Dell, Adolph Coors, and Tim Apple.
Well, almost.
President Donald Trump seems to have gotten a bit confused about the name of Apple’s CEO on Wednesday.
During a meeting with the Apple CEO and other members of his American Workforce Policy Advisory Board, Trump referred to Tim Cook as "Tim Apple" while praising him for investing in the US.
"We appreciate it very much, Tim Apple," Trump said.
You can watch the gaffe in the video clip embedded in this tweet:
Here’s a longer clip of Trump’s remarks (bolded for emphasis):
"We’re going to open up the labor forces because we have to. We have so many companies coming in people like Tim, you’re expanding all over and doing things that I really wanted you to right from the beginning.
I used to say ‘Tim you’ve got to start doing it over here.’ And you really have.
I mean you’ve really put a big investment in our country, we appreciate it very much Tim Apple. But we’re opening it up. We have to to bring people in. We want them to be people based on merit. And we want them to come in legally."
It’s possible that the apparent gaffe could actually be a case of awkward phrasing. Under this interpretation, Trump may have intended the words Tim and Apple to be separated by a comma, such that his comments were meant to express gratitude to both Tim Cook and Apple, in sequence.
Still, this wouldn’t be the first time Trump has gotten confused about an executive’s name. Last March, he flubbed the name of Lockheed Martin CEO Marillyn Hewson, referring to her as Marillyn Lockheed.
Read this: Trump flubbed the name of Lockheed Martin’s CEO, calling her ‘Marillyn Lockheed’
And of course, Trump is a longtime enthusiast of turning people’s names into taunts, as he did in a January tweet referring to Amazon’s Jeff Bezos as Jeff Bozo.
Cook used his time at the meeting to tout the importance of learning how to code software and Apple’s efforts to help train students and other people to do just that.
"We believe strongly that it should be a requirement in the United States for every kid to have coding before they graduate from K-12 and become somewhat proficient at it," Cook said.
Cook has had a mixed relationship with the White House, participating in other meetings with Trump, but also criticizing the President’s immigration policies.
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See Also:
- Mark Zuckerberg painted a biting contrast with Apple on privacy, saying Facebook has sacrificed business to protect users
- Tim Cook is reportedly getting super involved in Apple’s TV shows, giving feedback like ‘don’t be so mean’
- Tim Cook says conservative Apple employees who feel shunned should ‘come talk to me’
Source: Business Insider – twolverton@businessinsider.com (Troy Wolverton)