From ‘Think Different’ to ‘Kneel Obediently’

Longtime customer to Tim Cook: You traded inclusivity, diversity, and principles for gold plaques and tariff exemptions.

Tim Cook (tcook@apple.com)
Chief Executive Officer
Apple Inc.
One Apple Park Way
Cupertino, CA 95014

January 26, 2026

Dear Mr. Cook,

I have been an Apple customer for decades. I’ve owned more Macs, iPhones, iPads, and Apple Watches than I can count. I’m so deeply embedded in your ecosystem that I developed a visceral distaste for Windows and Android - not because they’re inferior products, but because Apple had earned my loyalty through what I believed were shared values.

Had. Past tense.

Apple once stood for something. Inclusivity. Diversity. “Think Different.” The company that ran ads honoring “the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels” and declared that “the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.” The company whose CEO came out publicly and spoke about the importance of LGBTQ+ rights. The company that employees and customers believed represented a different kind of corporate ethos.

That Apple is dead. What remains is a hollow shell - a company that will bend to any authoritarian demand, accept any humiliation, and abandon any principle if it protects the profit margin. Apple’s values have been compromised beyond recognition. The brand is tarnished. The trust is gone. Apple stands for nothing anymore except shareholder value and political survival.

And I am done.

Facilitating Xenophobia, Homophobia, and Racism

In October 2025, Apple removed ICEBlock and similar apps from the App Store after Attorney General Pam Bondi “demanded” their removal. ICEBlock was functionally identical to crowdsourcing speed traps - a feature Apple’s own Maps app implements as a core service. The app explicitly reminded users it was “not to be used for the purpose of inciting violence or interfering with law enforcement.”

As the app’s creator Joshua Aaron stated: “Capitulating to an authoritarian regime is never the right move.”

This was a company that once positioned itself as a defender of user privacy against government overreach. In 2016, Apple famously refused to help the FBI unlock an iPhone, arguing it would set a dangerous precedent. You personally wrote an open letter to customers defending that decision as a matter of civil liberties.

What happened to that Apple? That Apple would never have folded to a “demand” from Pam Bondi. That Apple would have recognized government-coerced censorship for what it is. Instead, you helped this regime terrorize immigrant communities - people whose only crime is seeking safety and a better life - because it was convenient for your bottom line.

Legal experts have condemned this as unconstitutional “jawboning.” Kate Ruane of the Center for Democracy and Technology warned that when companies capitulate to administration demands, they “erode the promise of the First Amendment for all of us.” Cornell law professor Gautam Hans believes Apple would have a strong legal case but doesn’t expect you to pursue it.

Of course not. Fighting would require principles.

Trading Dignity for Dollars

Your relationship with Trump has been nakedly transactional. You personally donated $1 million to his inauguration fund. You sat with his family on the dais at the inauguration.

In August 2025, you walked into the Oval Office and presented Trump with a custom glass plaque mounted on a 24-karat gold base, engraved with his name and your signature - a tribute one observer noted resembled an award, complete with you shaking his hand and saying “Congratulations, Mr. President.” Within minutes of receiving your golden offering, Trump announced Apple would be exempt from new tariffs. Later that day, he signed an executive order excluding Apple from a 50% tariff on imports from India.

The Democracy Defenders Fund has called for a federal investigation into whether this gift violated federal bribery statutes. Senator Elizabeth Warren documented how you “went to work behind the scenes” using your “very good relationship” with Trump to secure billions in tariff exemptions - exemptions that benefit Apple while small businesses that can’t afford million-dollar donations are left to fold.

Former Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross praised you for not being “a public whiner” or “crybaby.” That’s the compliment you’ve earned: you’re an obedient supplicant.

The Final Insult

On Saturday, January 25, 2026 - the same day federal agents shot and killed Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse, in Minneapolis - you attended a private White House screening of the Melania documentary. You sat in the East Room while a military band played “Melania’s Waltz.” You ate commemorative popcorn from boxes handled by gloved waiters. You posed for photos with Brett Ratner, a director who faced multiple sexual harassment allegations.

You did this while the country burned. While families mourned. While your customers watched in horror.

Since that screening, calls to boycott Apple have spread across social media. One Apple shareholder wrote: “Our CEO is attending an event at the White House on the same day that the Administration executed a U.S. citizen. I’ve long told people that Tim Cook is the best CEO in America. Tonight he has shamed us all.”

Your Twitter bio still features a Martin Luther King Jr. quote: “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’”

Remove it. You don’t do anything for anyone except investors, anymore.

What Remains

I understand you’re “playing the game.” But this is a zero-sum game until someone with power and resources finds the spine to stand up to corruption and hate. You lead one of the most valuable companies on Earth. You have leverage that most people can only dream of.

You are also a gay man leading a major corporation during a regime that is actively hostile to LGBTQ+ rights, immigrant rights, and the very concept of diversity. The cognitive dissonance must be staggering - or perhaps you’ve simply stopped caring. Perhaps the money is enough.

Apple’s customer base believed in something. We’ve paid premium prices - over $1,000 per device - not just for superior hardware, but for the values Apple claimed to represent. Inclusivity. Diversity. Privacy. Human rights. Thinking different.

Every single one of those values has been compromised. Not just compromised - abandoned. Sold for tariff exemptions and political favor.

I am preparing to leave the Apple ecosystem entirely, and I am far from alone. The inconvenience of switching platforms is nothing compared to the moral cost of continuing to fund your complicity.

Apple is no longer trustworthy. Apple stands for nothing. And customers like me - customers who built our digital lives around your products because we believed in what Apple represented - are finally seeing the truth.

History will remember who stood up and who bent the knee. You chose to kneel. You chose gold plaques, movie screenings, and political favor over everything Apple once claimed to be.

I hope the tariff exemptions were worth it.

Sincerely,
Marc Swan