Tim Cook, tech's Trump whisperer, goes quiet as his influence fades

In the run-up to President Trump's recent trip to the West Asia, the White House encouraged chief executives and representatives of many US companies to join him. Tim Cook (pictured), Apple's chief executive, declined, said two people familiar with the decision.

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The choice appeared to irritate Trump. As he hopscotched from Saudi Arabia to the United Arab Emirates, Trump took a number of shots at Cook.

During his speech in Riyadh, Trump paused to praise Jensen Huang, the chief executive of Nvidia, for traveling to the Middle East along with the White House delegation. Then he knocked Cook.

"I mean, Tim Cook isn't here but you are," Trump said to Huang at an event attended by chief executives like Larry Fink of the asset manager BlackRock, Sam Altman of OpenAI, Jane Fraser of Citigroup and Lisa Su of the semiconductor company AMD.

Later in Qatar, Trump said he "had a little problem with Tim Cook." The president praised Apple's investment in the United States, then said he had told Cook, "But now I hear you're building all over India. I don't want you building in India."

On Friday morning, Trump caught much of his own administration and Apple's leadership off guard with a social media post threatening tariffs of 25 percent on iPhones made anywhere except the United States. The post thrust Apple back into the administration's cross hairs a little over a month after Cook had lobbied and won an exemption from a 145 percent tariff on iPhones assembled in China and sold in the United States.