Do we like them?

Do we like Tim Cook?

Our score: 7 out of 10. A decent record, a public gay role model for a decade, and one real stain: how close he has stayed to the Trump administration.

Cook grew up in Alabama, spent years at IBM and Compaq, then joined Apple in March 1998 when Steve Jobs offered him a job. He became CEO in August 2011 after Jobs resigned. Apple's market value grew by more than $3.6 trillion on his watch, which is a fair slab of the iPhone's success.

In October 2014 he came out in his own essay, writing that he was proud to be gay and that it was among the greatest gifts God had given him. He said he hoped it might help someone struggling to come to terms with who they are. For an LGBTQ+ reader, that is a big part of why he gets the benefit of the doubt.

Then there is Trump. Cook gave $1 million personally to Trump's inaugural committee, and in August 2025 he handed Trump a glass plaque on a 24-karat gold base at the Oval Office as Apple announced $100 billion more in US manufacturing. Fortune noted Apple effectively avoided a planned 100% chip tariff. He also went to a private White House screening of the “Melania” documentary in January, and customers called for a boycott.

The worst fit with his image came in October 2025. Apple pulled the ICEBlock app after Attorney General Pam Bondi said the Justice Department had demanded it, and Apple cited law-enforcement information about safety risks. In January 2026 Cook told staff he was “heartbroken” over the killing of an ICU nurse in Minneapolis and called for de-escalation. He also said he'd had a “good conversation” with Trump. Critics found the memo late and mild.

Courts have not been kind to Apple on his watch. The Ninth Circuit upheld a civil contempt finding over the company's App Store fees in December 2025, and Apple is now taking that to the Supreme Court. Separately, investors alleged Cook hid falling iPhone demand in China in 2018. Apple denied it and agreed to pay $490 million in 2024 without admitting wrongdoing.

On the harm test, we found no words or campaigns of his own against LGBTQ+ people, women, migrants or the planet. He told Good Morning America “I'm not political”, and said he deals with the administration on policy. Whether that reads as pragmatic lobbying for a company or as keeping a powerful friend comfortable is the call, and the gifts and the ICEBlock call tip it towards the second for plenty of people. That is why it's an asterisk, not a clean pass.