Tim Cook chooses riches over justice and coddles the evil ways of dictator Trump

Again and again, Tim Cook has chosen groveling over principle, proximity to power, servitude over solidarity, and profit over people. His slithering up to Donald Trump has besmirched his reputation, and he probably couldn’t care less.

Cook is not some closeted executive navigating a hostile world. He is one of the most powerful out gay men on the planet, the CEO of a company that swims in obscene amounts of cash, a man who never misses an opportunity to remind us that Apple “stands for values.”

And yet when those values are put to the test, when the LGBTQ+ community is under open, sustained attack along with other innocent law-abiding Americans, Cook melts into a compliant, obsequious shadow of himself.

Look at the pattern. Cook proudly attends Donald Trump’s inauguration, lending legitimacy to a man who ran and governs on cruelty. Cook makes frequent pilgrimages to the Oval Office, even presenting Trump with a decorative glass-and-gold ornament, a grotesque symbol of fealty offered to a man whose political prowess thrives on dehumanization.

Related: Apple CEO Tim Cook bends the knee to Donald Trump with a golden Oval Office gift & $100 billion pledge

He poses smiling for photos while Trump and his administration systematically dismantle protections for queer and trans people, and gun down innocent people on bucolic neighborhood streets.

Cook showed up at a lavish state dinner in the U.K. hosted by King Charles, rubbing elbows with Trump like they’re old friends, And then there is the moment that should have shattered any remaining illusion about Cook’s moral compass.

While Americans were reeling, shocked to their core, by the killing of Alex Pretti in Minnesota, amid national grief, rage, and protest, Cook chose to attend a nauseatingly tone-deaf screening of a glossy documentary about Melania Trump. A vanity project soaked in controversy and obscene money.

While people mourned, Cook clinked glasses and sucked up to the despicable Trumps. While the country convulsed, Cook fawned. The contrast was disgusting and obscene.

Related: Apple CEO Tim Cook gets blasted for attending Melania screening at White House

The New York Times published a story Monday about some brave tech CEOs in Silicon Valley speaking up and speaking out. But others? Not at all. And the reason is blatantly obvious. As the Times writes, “But in recent years, top Silicon Valley executives and investors including Elon Musk, Marc Andreessen of the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, Apple’s Mr. Cook, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Nvidia’s Jensen Huang wooed conservatives to form political relationships that could benefit their companies. Some tech giants cracked down on employees expressing their political views and fired those who broke the rules.”

By remaining silent about Trump, Cook is not demonstrating neutrality. He’s wallowing in complicity. All for tax breaks, all for the bottom line that is flush with cash, while blithely sticking it to the very consumers who buy his products at ridiculously high prices.

Cook doesn’t need to Cook the books by wooing Trump. Yet money talks over speaking up.

All of this has unfolded while the Trump administration has waged a relentless campaign against LGBTQ+ people: banning trans people from the military, erasing LGBTQ+ history from government websites, gutting diversity and inclusion initiatives, firing a federal agent over a Pride flag, and slashing lifesaving AIDS assistance overseas. A tsunami of cruelty. A deliberate attempt to push queer people back into invisibility, precarity, and death.

And Cook? Silent. Smiling. Shaking hands. Presenting gifts. Fawning over the grifting Trumps.

Yes, Cook has occasionally muttered vague platitudes about inclusion. But he has rarely, if ever, used his immense power to meaningfully confront Trump’s assault on the LGBTQ+ community. No sustained pressure. No public reckoning. No moral line in the sand. Just access, access, access. Just money, money, money.

Why? Why all the fuss over Trump? Apple is not a fragile startup clinging to government goodwill. It is one of the richest corporations in human history, sitting on an estimated $162 billion in cash. How much more does Cook need? How many billions does it take before a rigid spine becomes affordable to him?

The answer, apparently, is that there is no amount of money that satisfies someone who has confused wealth with worth. When you are surrounded by more money than God, accountability becomes optional. You can afford to laugh at critics. You can afford to ignore boycotts. You can afford to pretend that your hands are clean while your fingers are helping to operate the machinery of harm that is Trump.

And people are calling for a boycott, because at some point, outrage has to turn into action. Cook may sneer at that. He may dismiss it as noise. He may hug Trump tighter and retreat further into the warm glasshouse of elite impunity. But history has a way of remembering who stood up and who bent over backwards for an autocrat.

Cook wants the credit for being a “historic” gay CEO while refusing the responsibility that comes with that visibility. He wants to be celebrated by the LGBTQ+ community while treating our pain as an acceptable cost of doing business. Queer rights versus tax breaks? Cook laughs at a choice like that.

That makes him a disgrace, not just as a CEO but as a human being who has benefited enormously from a community he now refuses to defend. Cook should be persona non grata in LGBTQ+ spaces. His silence, his sycophancy to Trump, and his relentless pursuit of access to Trump while queer lives are put in danger should disqualify him from any claim to moral leadership.

All that and lapping up Melania while Minneapolis and the country suffer.

In the end, Cook is no different from Trump in the way that matters most. They are both billionaires who believe that money is more important than morals, God, people, and life and death. Money absolves him of everything. That wealth is insidious, and so is Cook.

Cook may think this will never catch up with him. He may believe that history will be kind, that profits will drown out protest, that time will blur betrayal. But moral cowardice has a way of circling back.

After endlessly kissing Trump’s ass, Cook may finally find that coddling power comes back to bite his own.

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