And I can't even accept a gift voucher due to anti-bribery rules? Fuck off.

you can't even accept a bottle of water while waiting to vote! the rules are different for us and them.

Bribe. The word you're looking for

Don’t understand how this isn’t criminal in America.

Just a normal day in Trumplandia. You have to suck the King’s dick to stay alive!

What a stupid fucking dildo. Sucking pp like that.

When you're rich and powerful as fuck but still bend the knee to a felon rapist pedophile.

All of America's most "powerful" people are little fucking bitches. Little bitches are calling the shots and representing us to the world. Jesus Christ how pathetic is this country going to get?

Conservatives: Hold my beer.

reality is often disappointing.

Keep bending down and kiss the ring, Tim. You're not low enough, keep going...

Assuming that’s a 5lb paper weight base, is that ~250k$ worth??

I don't get why people are NOW saying he's trying to appease trump. He's been doing it for years. He was front row at his inauguration right next to other billionaires.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/apple-is-back-on-trumps-good-side-the-cost-600-billion-113413035.html

“The move comes after Trump threatened to place a 25% tariff on Apple’s iPhones made overseas and in the face of a potential 100% tariff on semiconductors.”

Pussies

enthusiastic dick sucking noises

Like in the grapefruit technique video.

Giving him a literal gold bar (though disguised as a stand) is stereotypical buying El Presidente in a Banana Republic bullshit.

I had to look it up: 24 karat is the purest form of gold. So yeah it's a gold bar 100% lmfao
- Cook isn't handling it like solid gold though (it looks too light). I bet it's 24 karat gold plated zinc.
Sounds like the US' chickens coming home to roost. After creating those conditions with their CIA elsewhere for decades.

The real Tim Apple

- I'm sure this has been pointed out before, but it's very appropriate that the video for "This is America" was shot in an abandoned factory building.

His name really is Tim Apple now.

Lmao I hope it's fake or thinly plated gold on a lead base

So, where are y'all going to hang your mandatory Trump portraits?

At the far end of my firing range.
So, where are y'all going to hang ~~your mandatory~~ Trump? ~~portraits~~
And start practicing goose stepping for the invasion force parades.

I’m not buying any more iPhones. I got used to them and just continued buying them. But no more.

I'm going from Android to Apple soon, because I'm finally totally over all the present day Android BS. Good luck, have fun.
Word to the wise: don't buy anything less than a flagship. Older flagship if you're wanting to save some money. Samsung is best. I've played around with all kinds of mid-tier Androids & it's a frustrating experience. The phones just don't work well for long. Motorola sucks ass, don't even bother.
- With the mid range Pixels you get a very polished and high quality Android I'd say.
You going to get the Trump phone, right!?
- Of course he has his own phone. Let me guess, it randomly charges your account and you can’t cancel the plan?

In other countries this would be a criminal offense. For example in Austria: if the value of the gift is above 50000€ , it's 6 months - 5 years; if over 300k€ it's 1-10 years of prison.

Oh, this is 100% a criminal offense for any government employee that isn't Donald Trump (or someone that he has decided to shield).
Low level government workers can't even accept someone paying for their lunch.
It's criminal here too. But laws don't matter anymore because the "party of law and order" decided to elevate a felon rapist pedophile.
In other countries this would be a criminal offense.
Dialing 911 and telling my local constabulary that the President is doing crimes. But then they just laugh at me and say "We're all doing crimes! It's the innocent people who get thrown in jail."
The same loophole exists almost anywhere: "its a gift to white house or trumps library"
- A gold bar gifted to an institution would still count as corruption in most sane jurisdictions. Sure those loopholes exist, but we tend to disguise them as investments or charity.
Not sure if you know this but I find it fun to know so I’m going to share.
In English when deciding whether to use a or an you should look at the start of the following word and if it starts with a vowel sound then use an else use a.
Examples:
An apple
An hour (note doesn’t start with a vowel but sounds like a vowel)
A goat
A criminal offence
- An hour
  Note, this can differ by region. For example, "an historic ..." is common in the UK, whereas it would be "a historic ..." in the US due to accent differences.
- aaah i know this and normally don't make this mistake, thank you very much tho, i will fix it right away 🫡

Gift? You mean bribe.

It is a gift. The same gift that the Noble gave to their King, so they would not get replaced or lose power. It is a Hail to the King move.
Yes this is a bribe. Period.
- Is it a bribe or ransom? Trump is extracting favors by threat.
OK let me play devil's advocate for a moment: it's the only language he speaks. You must stroke his ego, and give him an opportunity to look down on you.
Of course it's still corporate cronyism.
- Yeah the real story here should be hey everyone, look how transparently easy it is to manipulate the President of the United States
Cost of doing business in a country ruled by a dictator who LOVES shiny shit

Plot twist: It's loaded with spyware to gain leverage over Trump and blackmail him.

Emperor Cheesar accepting gold tribute from his feudal vassal

Seems like someone is worried about tariffs on iPhones. Sadly, this will probably work too.

A set of shiny keys dangled in his face so he forgets about demanding a US-made Iphone.

Tim Cook, and Apple, is supporting a pedophile. Remember that when you walk into an Apple Store, if you can afford to.

“Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai visited Trump at Mar-a-Lago after the election, and Google donated $1 million to the inauguration fund”
So is Google and every major company
- You're right it's both now can we fuck off with the "buh buh buh the other company!" bullshit?
  Article is about Apple not Google.
I bet most of the people here replying in the comments are typing on what helped pay for that gold plated ass kissing device.
- Is this a "you criticize society yet you participate in it" thing?
- Ya but I am pretty sure Google has done a lot to help Trump. Any big tech company wants to be on the good side of Trump.
- I'm typing this on a Lenovo laptop keyboard (V14 series, the plastic casing is just a catastrophe near the lid hinges, though I've seen the same with the magnesium casing, it has plastic parts inside).
  I've also pirated some Apple TV attempt at Foundation episodes, but honestly felt like The Arc. Sci-Fi with some right initial ideas, but ultimately thoroughly idiotic.
  In case of Apple TV's Foundation, I couldn't help thinking that they were trying to make it "look expensive" and "feel elitarian" similarly to their products, first priority, make it feel "diverse" and in social interactions representing a certain prestigious set of political ideas, second priority, make it feel nuanced and intelligent more than be nuanced and intelligent, third priority.
  Honestly even with 90s Apple stuff virtualized I feel something bad, like nausea, I wouldn't be able to use it probably. Too much visual design flexing.
- Maybe if we were on reddit, here I really don't think that's true.
- Nope.
  I am typing on a slab of the biggest AI alop search machine with a capital G

Gay man gives gift to anti-lgbtq president.

Just proves that you can be gay and still be an absolute parasite billionaire. Fuck your pride apple watch bands.

Peter thiel, the architect behind Vance and trump and bilderberg and palantir, is also gay.
So gay, he had his former lover killed.
https://www.jezebel.com/death-of-gop-billionaire-peter-thiels-kept-man-is-being-1850259839
https://www.advocate.com/peter-thiel/peter-thiel-model-jeff-thomas
https://theintercept.com/2023/03/23/peter-thiel-jeff-thomas/
- vance who is also mostly closeted too. peter thiel defenestrated his model bf.
Well fuck, Clarence is basically a black white supremacist.
- It’s pretty clear by now that the character Stinkmeaner is based wholly on Clarence Thomas
- his sugar daddy is a nazi, harlan crow.
Class is the only identity that matters to them
No war, but the class war.
Thiel showed the way.
- Ernst Roehm did it first

Imagine if the CEO of one of the most powerful companies in the world didnt bend over and spread cheeks for a cock so small Donald has to... employ the services of paedos like Jeffery Epstein...?

Donald is suspected of being a paedophile. Yet people still bend the knee like this. I tell you, when it finally comes out, I hope everyone remembers who was happy to continue kissing his ass. Fuck you, Tim.

I guess I'm the only one who sees this as "here little Donald, now play with this and let me do my job".

I think it's that and also more and all of it is wrong and disgusting.
- What if he's on the list and doesn't want his name coming out.
Yeah that is not how dictatorship works. He is vending a knee
- He is vending the knee
  I hate when I try to buy the knee, and it gets stuck in the machine...
That’s exactly it.
Promise things that you’re doing anyway, use big numbers - hundreds of billions
Give him some shiny crap, he loves it
Praise him
Then he’ll let you go on as usual

Such a disgusting display. Most normal people don't want anything to do with rapists and child molesters, yet here's Tim.

Honestly I am pretty sure this is a bribe to exempt Apple from tariffs. Billionaires care more about their profit than children being harm. It’s the sad truth.
- Jesus short memories.
  Apple phones have been built in by Chinese kids in buildings with suicide nets on them since the beginning.
  When the fuck did Apple EVER give a shit about anything other than its value?
- But Apple cares about children. They were the first to run CSAM scans on their cloud storage and devices.
  /s
- It's a bribe in disguise. It's a tribute and a public spectacle of loyalty. And the top voted comment thinks Tim is playing 4d chess with Trump...
  Nothing will improve until these people are eliminated from their positions of power. Stop giving Apple your money.
- All in plain sight. Brass and shameful. Why has this been normalize? 😡
- “Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai visited Trump at Mar-a-Lago after the election, and Google donated $1 million to the inauguration fund”
- At this point it seems like half of them became billionaires just to be the ones harming the children.
- He pretty much says it, right? 'here's a 24k gold bar... to hold the plaque we engraved your name on

I guess Trump didn't like the rimjob from Tim the first time.

Release the Epstein files

Surely they will throw him in prison!

we're gonna need more luigis.

It’s hard to understand Tim Apple with an orange cock in his mouth.

Just suck him off already, you fucks. Come on commit!

This is my own conjecture, but I'm willing to bet that playing nicely with Pres. Trump somehow saves Apple billions more in lost revenue to tariffs and legislation because Trump rewards those who are on his good side. I'm also willing to bet Tim / Apple is pressured to do this and has a very different attitude behind closed doors. Not that this excuses anybody for their actions, but it's clear they're trying to game the system the best they can in the name of "business".

Keeping our morals behind closed doors is what's wrong with the world.
- Almost like it's a completely bullshit excuse, like "just following orders".
  Crime isn't suddenly okay because it's profitable, no matter how much capitalism wants you to believe it.
- It’s like nuclear weapons
  Unless everyone gets rid of them nobody will
  Being the only one not to “bend the knee” will just hurt you if everyone else kisses his ass
You're probably right.
That doesn't change my opinion, though, that everyone at Apple can go suck-start their own asshole, and they'll never receive another cent of my money for as long as I live.
I already wasn't buying their shit but this has signed and sealed that for the rest of eternity.
I don't know, I mean if any corporation can eat the loss, it's apple with their insanely high margins.
I'm more inclined to believe there's some form of quid pro quo going on behind the scenes.
Besides, I simply cannot picture Tim Apple as any kind of a hero in this picture. No way he got bullied. He's getting something out of it. You scratch my back. I'll scratch yours.

Oh hey, another reason Apple fucking sucks. Look at that.

Another reason billionaires fucking suck. They'll always end up looking out for each other
It’s Apple or Google pretty much here for us Americans. Who do you think we should support? Or do you think we should go back to t9 Nokias?
- European alternative: https://sailfishos.org/
- I want WebOS back.
  Or a clean, normal, non-Android phone version of Linux.

I have always hated Apple, this is just further proof that they are greedy fucks with no morals.

“Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai visited Trump at Mar-a-Lago after the election, and Google donated $1 million to the inauguration fund”
Cost of doing business
- You know how those Trump supporters thought we were supposed to be really offended at "Fuck Biden" but no one gave a shit because even most Democrats were never really cheerleaders for Biden?
  Even people who hate Apple know that Google is a piece of shit too. We aren't (generally) Google cheerleaders. You don't need to whatabout all the anti-Apple comments.
- Dude. We know.
Back door to Apple customer data maybe?
- They already get that from the PRISM act.

All the people that surely criticized Musk at the time, would surely not criticize cook this time, because Apple fans... They have it in their hands

Time to boycott Apple just like everybody decided to boycott Target and Amazon for bending over.

I mean at this point you'll have to boycott everyone. Boycotting isn't gonna cut it anymore.
- You're not wrong—and yet, nobody decides to do anything. Still.
- See, I disagree with this sentiment. Coming from a Canadian we're seeing products in grocery stores and other places we've simply never seen before because all the american product is rotting on the shelves. For instance, I've seen legit Canadian brands of laundry detergent whereas my whole life all I've ever really seen is tide, bounce the usual corp crap.
  This is slowly but surely propping up alternatives in a way that simply wasn't possible before and directly contributing to what is currently small manufacturers, farmers and other retailers into becoming viable alternatives to the usual suspects.
Google gave $1M to him
Will you boycott Google products too?
- Shouldn't we?

This is why when the whole media world rushed to protect him when he came out of the closet as gay was total and utter bullshit. He wasn't brave and he doesn't give one hot damn about the gay community clearly.

so Trump excluded Apple from his tarriffs, right?

Trump could do the funniest thing... And not exempt Apple.
Ding ding ding!

I fucking hate corporatism

https://paulstreet.substack.com/p/fascism-is-corporatism-the-merger

Do stocks go up from such a cringe-move?

Apple stock did, and unfortunately it even makes sense why. Considering how self-centered Trump is, and how easily swayed he can be by a literal shiny rock being given to him, this was probably a legitimately good trade for Apple.
They spend some money on a gold brick with some laser-cut glass, and the president of the entire country either gives them preferential treatment, or simply doesn't take any more extreme actions he was planning to take against them.
- trump loves guady gold plated pieces, he thinks its the epitome of fine furniture or wealth.
- The shareholders should be ashamed.. That's not good business, that's evil.
They sure did!

Cook speaks Trump. Fluently.

I bet Apple has a Trump Mitigation Team

Jesus, just pull his fly down and give him a blow job already.

Probably got bored of that

What a fucking tool.

Yes he is, but that’s who you voted to lead 🤷🏻‍♂️
- 'you'

Fuck you Tim Cook

I already hate Apple products, so I can't not buy them to make a statement about not supporting fascist loving corpo scum.

“Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai visited Trump at Mar-a-Lago after the election, and Google donated $1 million to the inauguration fund”
Will you stop using Google products, including Android and YouTube or are you just a hypocrite?
- Oh yes, let me protest this thing that just happened by throwing my Android-OS phone that I bought years ago away. That'll show 'em.
  You're just as disingenuous and stupid as the morons on the right who smashed their Keurigs.
  FYI, my next phone will probably be a Linux phone anyway and I hardly use YouTube at all these days, and when I do it's with AdBlockers on, and I never gave a cent to them for premium, so I cost them money to use their platform if anything. If PeerTube or some other non-Google video hosting service could go mainstream, I'd use that in a heartbeat. I've de-Googled my life as much as I could reasonably be expected to, and this was before their CEO kissed the ring. So fuck off with your judgemental attitude.

An apple shaped hole in a CD? He just presented Trump with an A-Hole award.

Fucking gross.

I’ll bet those boots taste disgusting.

Since this isn't Tim Apple's first roll in the hay with Trump, I doubt he minds the taste.
Just like $100 dollar bills, if you're lucky, you might even get a little cocaine with it.

This is a bit like mark rutte calling Trump “daddy”. It’s completely inconsequential in actual reality but still feels so entirely wrong. And I don’t even know who should be most embarrassed, the bootlickers or Trump for being transparently narcissistic that everyone realizes bootlicking works

This is not inconsequential at all, it's literally a bribe

bootlicker

edit: apple polisher is more appropriate and punny

Is the 24 karat on Aluminum?

More likely zinc or brass.

Scorched earth.

Let's see if apple enjoys the Tesla treatment.

You know cook loves money more than his principles.

I can't wait for all these fuckwits to get what's coming to them.

Why don't they just transfer $200k directly to Trump?

"ewww, that would be bribery. This is not a bribe, it's a ... gift? Yes, it's a gift. Definitely a gift. And we expect nothing in return ;⁠-⁠);⁠-⁠) just a little gift. And this is definitely not a distraction from the orange buffoon being a child rapist and being mentioned many times on the Epstein list!!!"
“Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai visited Trump at Mar-a-Lago after the election, and Google donated $1 million to the inauguration fund”
Not a big enough bribe at this scale

Goddammit Tim Apple, it doesn't even look like anything remotely interesting.

For a split second after he stepped aside to reveal it, I actually thought it was a cool dragon figure. Must've been my mind desperately seeking any meaning in this nonsense because I was looking at the phones.

So Trump didn’t want his usual bribe of a BJ and $10M??

Imagine America loving it.

Ba da da da da.

Ick

Had a hard time hearing what he said... What was it? A gold base for a piece of glass?

gold
thats exactly, its probably just gold plated, and not solid gold.

Maybe he just has a fetish for tiny pee pees?

I salute Tim on his dick sucking skills

Render unto Caesar..

Surely 18k gold would be close enough, right?

18? We all know that he prefers 15 or so...