Tim Cook Talks Apple Antitrust Probe, Remote Work, Relationship With Trump

Apple Inc AAPL CEO Tim Cook in an interview with the Atlantic on Monday discussed several events surrounding the consumer electronics company of late.

Apple All For Antitrust Probe: Cook suggested that he doesn't find the lawmakers' probe into antitrust allegations against Apple at all problematic.

“I think that big companies deserve scrutiny. And I think that's not only fair but important for the system that we have in America,” he said, in response to a question on whether he was "bothered" by being asked to testify before the Congress alongside Facebook Inc FB CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

“There is no monopoly here,” he told the Atlantic. There are “basically street fights” for market share, according to Cook, who claims Apple’s strategy to make the best products available means it can't be termed a monopoly. 

“Somebody will choose a commodity product and there are enough people that buy the commodity product that it will have more share. That's true in all of the different fields we're in,” the billionaire added.

Remote Work Has Pros, Cons: As a "vast majority" of Apple employees work from home during the coronavirus pandemic, Cook said the company has found there are advantages to remote work, but Apple still depends on “people kind of running into each other over the course of a day.”

“We won’t return to the way we were because we’ve found that there are some things that actually work really well virtually,” Cook noted, adding that a good number of the workers, including himself, "can't wait to get back in the office again." He said it's difficult to pin an exact timeline on resuming office work, but he hopes it would be sometime next year.

Maintaining Relations With Trump Important: The Apple CEO reiterated he believes in engaging elected officials, and it's even "more important to engage when you disagree.”
When questioned on the conversations he has had with President Donald Trump related to immigration and climate change, Cook said these were "private conversations, so I don’t want to talk about it in detail.”

Price Action: Apple shares traded 0.8% higher at $110.95 in the after-hours session Monday.

Photo by Valery Marchive via Wikimedia