Fri. 05/23 – Tim Apple’s Very Bad Week

Techmeme Ride Home

Brian McCullough

News, Technology, Daily News, Tech News

4.7 • 984 Ratings

🗓️ 23 May 2025

⏱️ 20 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Tariff fun is back and this time there’s only one tech company in the crosshairs: Apple. Anthropic releases flagship new Claude models, and they seem to be impressive, but half the story here is how weird they behave. Like, ratting on users to authorities, blackmailing engineers and maybe creating biological weapons. And, of course, the Weekend Longreads Suggestions.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the TechMeme Right Home for Friday, May 23rd, 2025. I'm Brian McCullough today.
0:08.0	Terra Fun is back, and this time there's only one tech company in the crosshairs, Apple.
0:14.0	Anthropic releases flagship new Claude models, and they seem to be impressive, but half the story here is how weird they behave, like
0:21.1	ratting on users to authorities, blackmailing engineers, and maybe creating biological weapons,
0:27.2	and of course the weekend long read suggestions. Here's what you missed today in the world of
0:30.9	tech.
0:35.4	President Trump says a 25% tariff, quote, must be paid by Apple on iPhones not made in the U.S., saying he told Apple CEO Tim Cook long ago that iPhones sold in the U.S. must be made in the U.S.
0:48.9	Quoting CNBC, I have long ago informed Tim Cook of Apple that I expect their iPhones that will be sold in the
0:54.9	United States of America will be manufactured and built in the United States, not India, or in any
0:59.6	place else. If that is not the case, a tariff of at least 25% must be paid by Apple to the US.
1:06.6	Trump said on Truth Social, shares of Apple fell more than 2% in pre-market trading.
1:12.2	Production of Apple's flagship phone happens primarily in China, but the company has been
1:16.3	shifting manufacturing to India in part because that country has a friendlier trade relationship
1:21.2	with the U.S. Some Wall Street analysts have estimated that moving iPhone production to the U.S.
1:26.3	would raise the price of the Apple
1:28.1	smartphone by at least 25%. Wedbush's Dan Ives puts the estimated cost of a U.S. iPhone at $3,500.
1:36.6	The iPhone 16 Pro currently retails for about $1,000. This is the latest jab at Apple from Trump,
1:42.5	who over the past couple weeks has ramped up pressure on the company and Cook to increase domestic manufacturing.
1:48.3	Trump and Cook met at the White House on Tuesday, according to Politico, end quote.
1:53.4	So I'm seriously asking here, is there any precedent or law for the U.S. specifically tariffing or taxing a domestic U.S. company? Like, is this possible to do?
2:05.2	What I can say definitively is that after Google's successful I.O. and Johnny Ive to
2:10.8	Open AI news, Apple has had a really, really bad week.
	...

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