What exactly did Tim Cook spend a million bucks on?

It’s time to check in on the investments made by Apple CEO Tim Cook in a segment the Macalope likes to call…

Tim’s Investments.

(Yeah, he just made this up, but would it kill you to play along?)

As long-time readers of this segment will remember (shh), the Macalope community provides this as a free service to Apple CEO Tim Cook to help him better analyze the performance of his many investments. Sometimes it’s as large as a chip fabricating plant in Southeast Asia, sometimes as small as an electric toothbrush he bought at Walgreens. (That toothbrush was terrible, by the way.)

This time we are going to take a little look at an investment that Tim made earlier this year to a certain incoming president’s inaugural fund. For a million dollars. Not to spoil the ending, but we will find that a million dollars doesn’t go as far as it used to.

A million dollars isn’t a lot of money for nations or for Apple or even for Tim Cook, who donated the amount from his personal coffers (not a lot of people know this but Tim keeps all his funds in actual strong boxes). But it’s a good-sized amount for an individual inaugural donation. The Macalope, for example, gave far less. He gave zero dollars (only because negative amounts were apparently not allowable, so much for money representing legal free speech).

Irrespective of the optics (“morality” is such a charged word) of trying to curry favor (“bribe” is such a dirty word) with the highest politician in the land, it doesn’t seem like Tim got much of a return on his investment.

Let us review the events of this week through the magic of headlines.

“Tariff News, April 2, 2025: Trump Unveils Sweeping Levies in Stark Shift in Trade Policy”

You might think Apple would have gotten some special carve-out for Tim Cook’s $1 million–but that was January! That’s forever ago in palm-greasing time! What have you donated lately?

What do these tariffs mean for Apple, you know, the company that Cook is CEO of?

“A $2,300 Apple iPhone? Trump tariffs could make that happen”

And that’s not foldable phones. That’s regular ol’ flat phones. Although at prices like that, you might snap one in half out of anger.

How is the company responding?

“How Apple ‘flew’ 5 flights full of iPhones from India and China in 3 days to beat Trump Tariffs”

That’s how the market is supposed to work, right? The invisible hand puts the iPhones on the plane… then it flies the plane? Sorry, the Macalope must have been out sick that week of business school.

IDG

But, wait! That’s not all the bad news for Apple! What else did Tim get for a million bucks?

“Apple Plunges 9%, Leading a Tech Sell-Off”

And that headline was from last Thursday. As of this writing, Apple stock is down more than 18 percent since the tariffs were announced, much like the rest of the market.

Just… don’t look at your 401(k). Keep looking at those Pokémon cards you never opened and are still in mint condition. That’s your real nest egg now. And whatever internal organs you have to sell. Members of your family who are not necessarily your favorites. Your soul. That kind of thing.

You’ll be fine. It’ll be fine. We’ll be fine. You know who else will be fine? Surprise twist.

See, the Macalope left out one headline that goes before those other ones.

“Apple CEO Tim Cook Sells Stock Worth $24 Million”

Must be nice.

The problem in these situations is that once you turn the spigot full of favors on, all you can do is keep the flow running. Good luck keeping up, Tim.