Mikey Campbell
A U.S. Senate document published this week reveals Apple spent spent some $1.56 million in the third quarter of 2020 to lobby lawmakers on a variety of issues including the coronavirus pandemic, taxes, autonomous vehicles, and more.
According to a lobbying disclosure form made public on Tuesday, and subsequently spotted by SetteBIT on Twitter, Apple directed a team of seven lobbyists to impact policy at the U.S. Senate, House of Representatives, Patent and Trademark Office, Department of Defense, Federal Communications Commission, Treasury Department, Health & Human Services, U.S. Trade Representative, State Department, Homeland Security, Office of Management & Budget, National Institute of Standards & Technology, and Executive Office of the President.
Apple discussed a range of matters with lawmakers, from the usual patent reform, environmental, trade and corporate tax reform issues to more recent developments like the coronavirus and remote education. On the latter, the tech giant benefitted from a boost in Mac and iPad sales thanks to stay-at-home orders and the remote learning initiatives that followed.
Apple is also looking for tax breaks for semiconductor fabrication, suggesting the company wants to expand chip production in the U.S. The move comes as Apple prepares to ramp up supply for Apple silicon Macs.
Other topics of interest include government oversight issues such as requests for user data and the EARN IT Act, and health-related concerns that impact mobile medical devices, health records and health data. Mobile payments and Apple Card were also discussed, according to the report.
Apple continues to argue diversification in the workplace and push for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and other immigration matters.
Overall, spending on lobbying operations was down about $200,000 year-over-year. Sequential spend was also down, as Apple laid out some $7.4 million on similar initiatives in the first half of 2020. That figure nearly matched Apple's outlay for the whole of 2019.
Beyond in-house lobbyists, Apple CEO Tim Cook regularly interfaces with high-ranking government officials. The most prominent figure is President Trump, with whom Cook has a working relationship that is rare among the tech elite.
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Charles Martin
Malcolm Owen
William Gallagher
Christine McKee
Wesley Hilliard
4 Comments
Incidentally, the site OpenSecrets has far more extensive information about who is being paid by Apple.
https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/apple-inc/summary?id=D000021754
In my opinion, against Apple’s business interests they have only contributed to politicians and candidates whose anti-business positions put them squarely in the anti-capitalist realm. Supporting only politicians who have a stated goal of extorting or destroying your business is a very bad position to put the entire company in. They should be practical instead of partisan about lobbying.
Some democracies are so corrupt they make China look clean.
$1.556 million. Isn't that want they make every millisecond?
This is the total breakdown which I assume includes all forms of lobbying like Federal, State, local, etc,.
As a percentage of their net profits Apple spends the least.
Google cut its lobbying spending nearly in half in 2019, while Facebook took the lead
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/22/how-much-google-facebook-amazon-and-apple-spent-on-lobbying-in-2019.html