Report: Apple Agreed to Intel Chips Amid White House Tariff Talks

Apple faced pressure from the White House to use Intel's chipmaking plants while it was negotiating relief from semiconductor tariffs last summer, reports The Wall Street Journal ($). In August 2025, Apple CEO Tim Cook was in Washington to lobby the Trump administration to drop its proposed 100 percent tariff on semiconductor imports – a levy that would have raised costs across Apple's product line. Apple reportedly secured an exemption after pledging to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in