{"id":20775,"date":"2026-04-11T00:18:05","date_gmt":"2026-04-11T00:18:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/20775\/"},"modified":"2026-04-11T00:18:05","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T00:18:05","slug":"apple-ceo-tim-cook-blasted-for-attending-melania-screening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/20775\/","title":{"rendered":"Apple CEO Tim Cook blasted for attending ‘Melania’ screening"},"content":{"rendered":"

Apple<\/a> CEO Tim Cook<\/a> attended Saturday\u2019s private screening of Melania, the documentary about First Lady Melania Trump<\/a>, at the White House, and many online commenters have reacted by excoriating Cook and calling for boycotts of Apple products.<\/p>\n

Cook, who is gay, is among many tech leaders who have cozied up to Donald Trump<\/a> and his family. Other tech CEOs who were at the screening included Andy Jassy of Amazon<\/a>, Eric Yuan of Zoom, and Lisa Su of AMD, Yahoo! News<\/a> reports. They were among about 70 guests at the East Room screening. The film is from Amazon Studios.<\/p>\n

Related: Apple CEO Tim Cook bends the knee to Donald Trump with a golden Oval Office gift & $100 billion pledge<\/a><\/p>\n

The event came just hours after Alex Pretti<\/a> was shot to death by Border Patrol agents<\/a> in Minneapolis<\/a>. The 37-year-old nurse was observing and protesting operations by Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement,<\/a> and video shows him trying to help a woman who was being pepper-sprayed before agents wrestled him to the ground and shot him multiple times. The Trump administration has tried to paint this as a case of self-defense by federal agents, as it did with the killing of Renee Nicole Good<\/a>, but in both cases, video shows otherwise.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re a CEO willing to sit in the company of this regime, your \u2018shareholder value\u2019 excuse feels pretty blood-soaked tonight,\u201d Lincoln Project cofounder and former Republican political consultant Rick Wilson posted on X.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s revolting \u2014 especially Tim Cook,\u201d one person wrote in response to Wilson\u2019s post. \u201cI\u2019m never buying another Apple product in my life \u2014 even though I have several [expletive] dozen!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTim Cook and Andy Jassy \u2014 and the rest\u2014are accommodating an authoritarian who is presiding over a secret police force killing American citizens,\u201d commented David Corn, Washington bureau chief for the liberal magazine Mother Jones. \u201cThe blood of Renee Good and Alex Pretti is on the hands of those who enable Trump. Hope they like the movie.\u201d<\/p>\n

Related: Apple CEO Tim Cook joins other major business leaders with $1 million personal donation to Trump\u2019s inauguration<\/a><\/p>\n

Adam Cochran, a professor and consultant, addressed Cook in an X post: \u201cAs one of the few Silicon Valley folks I know has a spine hidden somewhere, I have to ask you: How was this movie? The one you watched while Americans were shot. While ICE tracking apps were banned from the App Store. While you stayed silent on Trump. The one you were invited to by the man you donated $1M to the inauguration fund of? The same man who shits on the rights and values you\u2019ve worked hard for at Apple \u2014 like environmental causes and LGTBQ rights? How was that movie Tim? Was it worth the price of admission?\u201d<\/p>\n

Cook has caught more flak than the others who attended the screening precisely because of those liberal values. He was the first out gay CEO of a Fortune 500 company, and he has spoken out against anti-transgender \u201cbathroom bills\u201d and \u201clicense to discriminate\u201d legislation. His X bio<\/a> includes a quote from Martin Luther King Jr.: \u201cLife\u2019s most persistent and urgent question is, \u2018What are you doing for others?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

An X user commented, \u201cI think @tim_cook should take the MLK quote out of his bio. Feels off-brand for the guy who attended a private screening of the Brett Ratner MELANIA doc.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ratner<\/a> has largely been shunned in the movie business since he was accused of sexual misconduct, allegations that first surfaced in 2017 (he has denied any wrongdoing). Melania represents a comeback for Ratner, who lived at the Trumps\u2019 Mar-a-Lago mansion during filming, according to The Hollywood Reporter.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cRatner is also set to direct \u2018Rush Hour 4\u2019 for Paramount after President Trump reportedly pressed owner Larry Ellison to revive the stalled franchise,\u201d the Los Angeles Times<\/a> reports.<\/p>\n

Cook was photographed with Ratner at the screening, where other guests included former boxer and convicted rapist Mike Tyson.<\/p>\n

So far Cook has not responded to the criticism, nor has Apple.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Apple CEO Tim Cook attended Saturday\u2019s private screening of Melania, the documentary about First Lady Melania Trump, at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20776,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[155],"tags":[205,15179,633,2383,474,12,8295,1726,15180,15181,13613,973,15182,6946,3662,51,996,584,628,987],"class_list":{"0":"post-20775","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tim-cook","8":"tag-amazon","9":"tag-amazon-studios","10":"tag-apple","11":"tag-border-patrol","12":"tag-business","13":"tag-donald-trump","14":"tag-film","15":"tag-immigration-and-customs-enforcement","16":"tag-license-to-discriminate","17":"tag-lincoln-project","18":"tag-martin-luther-king-jr","19":"tag-melania-trump","20":"tag-mike-tyson","21":"tag-paramount","22":"tag-politicians","23":"tag-politics","24":"tag-silicon-valley","25":"tag-technology","26":"tag-tim-cook","27":"tag-white-house"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116383206938525119","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20775\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}