Apple CEO Tim Cook Reveals Why He Met the US President-Elect, in Leaked Note to Employees

Tim Cook, the Apple CEO, has revealed his rationale behind meeting with governments. His statements were quoted from a note to employees on the 'Apple Web' internal message board used at the company, and the note was leaked. Cook was evidently referring to last week's meeting with the US President-elect, which saw Silicon Valley's most powerful executives come together.

In the note, which was obtained by TechCrunch, Cook was asked a series of questions by employees, including whether Mac desktops were still strategically important for Apple. Cook was asked why it was important to meet a government - referring to to the recent meeting with US President-elect Donald Trump.

Cook responded and wrote, "It's very important. Governments can affect our ability to do what we do. They can affect it in positive ways and they can affect in not so positive ways. What we do is focus on the policies. Some of our key areas of focus are on privacy and security, education. They're on advocating for human rights for everyone, and expanding the definition of human rights. They're on the environment and really combating climate change, something we do by running our business on 100 percent renewable energy. And of course, creating jobs is a key part of what we do by giving people opportunity not only with people that work directly for Apple, but the large number of people that are in our ecosystem. We're really proud that we've created 2 million jobs, just in this country."

Cook stressed on the fact that engaging with governments is smarter than being on the side-lines. He added, "Personally, I've never found being on the sideline a successful place to be. The way that you influence these issues is to be in the arena. So whether it's in this country, or the European Union, or in China or South America, we engage. And we engage when we agree and we engage when we disagree. I think it's very important to do that because you don't change things by just yelling. You change things by showing everyone why your way is the best. In many ways, it's a debate of ideas."