Tim Cook’s Travel Generating 2020 Buzz

While Mark Zuckerberg is currently generating the most 2020 buzz among Silicon Valley CEOs, Apple’s Tim Cook might be soon on his heels. After Cook made recent trips to Ohio and Iowa, two traditional presidential battleground states, he’s drawing 2020 buzz from some Silicon Valley observers.

While it’s still very unlikely that Cook would actually run for president, his tenure as Apple’s CEO, as well his own political baggage, would be major negatives. See below for some of the major negatives on Cook’s resume:

• Cook was a major Hillary Clinton supporter, both hosting a major fundraiser for her and appearing on a list of possible Vice Presidential nominees.
• Cook was responsible for “guiding the decision” by Apple to focus on foreign manufacturing. In practice, this meant that Cook led the company to build many of their products in China.
  • Apple sustains double the amount of jobs in China as they do in the United States.
• During Cook’s tenure as Apple’s CEO, the company has been accused of making major concessions in order to “appease the Chinese government.”