Apple CEO Tim Cook announced on Monday that they are planning to invest $500 billion in the U.S. over the next four years. It will create 20,000 new jobs, and construct a new factory in Texas to produce machinery supporting its artificial intelligence expansion. The announcement came a few days after Tim Cook met with President Trump.
“We are bullish on the future of American innovation, and we’re proud to build on our longstanding U.S. investments,” Tim Cook said in a statement.
The previous week, Mr. Cook met with President Trump to discuss production and the company's plans. After the meeting, Mr. Trump announced to the press that the company would eventually postpone foreign production into the United States: “They’re going to build here instead because they don’t want to pay the tariffs,” Mr. Trump said in a speech to a gathering of governors.
Most iPhones are produced in China by Taiwanese electronics giant Foxconn. Earlier this month, the U.S. slapped a 10% tariff on all imports from China, with potential tariffs on goods from Canada, Mexico, and other significant trading partners expected within the coming weeks.
Over the past two years, Foxconn has spent millions of dollars building operations outside of China, including in Texas and Mexico, where the company already assembles A.I. servers. This expanded footprint, the company’s chairman previously said, would insulate Foxconn from U.S. tariffs.
Apple announced that it would start assembling advanced servers previously manufactured outside the U.S. in a new 250,000-square-foot facility located in Houston. The site is expected to come online in 2026 and is expected to bring thousands of jobs to the area. In addition, with the integration of AI functionalities into its algorithms, Apple will expand data center operations in Arizona, Iowa, Nevada, North Carolina, and Oregon.
Apple described its announcement on Monday as its “largest-ever spend commitment.” The $500 billion would go toward manufacturing facilities, data centers, entertainment productions, and other initiatives, the company said. Also over the next four years, the company plans to hire 20,000 people, primarily focused on “R&D, silicon engineering, software development, and AI and machine learning.”
