Gregory's Server@gruber @stroughtonsmith we all agree that it was unnecessary for Tim Cook to congratulate Trump in November though, so what makes a $1m donation different? https://daringfireball.net/2024/11/i_wonder
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@gruber @rileytestut @stroughtonsmith I think your disdain for exclamation marks may be colouring your judgment here. !! Donating $1,000,000USD to the Trump Inaugural fund isn’t forced by any law other than the extra-judicial reality ushered in by the electorate. If the point is that even the most principled CEOs of the most prestigious companies in the world *must* pay tribute to the President-elect in order to continue doing business that’s kinda concerning.™️  @Gte @gruber @rileytestut right, it's not like all these companies are contributing exactly a million dollars out of their own volition. Demands were made, and they acquiesced. What will the next demand be, and where will it end? And who exactly will be coming up with future demands? I know somebody who demanded to be CEO of Apple in their last round of negotiations 😛  @gruber @rileytestut @stroughtonsmith I was confident you did. The confusion I had was that the congratulatory messages were worse. That’s how I read that tweet at least. They’re maybe lip of the ski slope and can be seen as where the acceleration started. But this wasn’t forced so much as leaning into the slope. @Gte @rileytestut @stroughtonsmith Gotcha. Mistake: Congratulatory tweets: a bad look for the CEOs because they really weren’t under pressure to do it. $1 million inauguration donations: a dark situation, genuinely concerning, because they obviously are under pressure to do it. @gruber @Gte@mastodon.social @rileytestut @stroughtonsmith I feel I misread your earlier messages, similarly to @gte. @gruber @rileytestut @stroughtonsmith (Also, just to say so in public—your take on DF is good and I appreciate it) @Gte @gruber @rileytestut @stroughtonsmith See? This is why we can have nice things!  @Gte @gruber @rileytestut @stroughtonsmith  @Gte @gruber @rileytestut @stroughtonsmith Successful blackmailers always come back for more. @Gte @gruber @rileytestut @stroughtonsmith Can you trust him to make the right choices anymore, if they conflict with profits? He did once famously said he doesn’t care about “bloody ROI”. Maybe that has changed. @gruber @stroughtonsmith I personally still don’t think the donation was _necessary_, but I’ll admit that’s a fair distinction (even though Trump does certainly care about the platitudes) |
@rileytestut @stroughtonsmith They’re on the same vector, but talk is cheap. A protection racket cares about the money, not the platitudes. So in that sense I think the CEO congratulatory tweets look worse, because they weren’t forced.