Apple Joins Slew of Companies Touting More U.S. Jobs. How Much Is New?
Wall Street Journal
Businesses sugarcoat investment plans to appeal to new presidents
By
Aaron Tilley, Theo Francis and Amrith Ramkumar
Feb. 24, 2025 9:00 pm ET
iPhone boxes carry a stamp saying they are designed by Apple AAPL 0.63%increase; green up pointing triangle in California. Smaller print makes clear one of America’s biggest manufacturing successes is mostly imported from China, where millions of people working for overseas contractors assemble the phones.
Early in the second Trump administration, Apple and other companies are trying to quickly answer the president’s call to rouse American manufacturing. To do that, they are turning to investments and job growth that include previously planned spending or developments already under way.
Apple, like many of the most valuable U.S. companies, isn’t a major manufacturer. It designs products, writes software and creates chip blueprints, but outsources much of its production and markets the result. With the Trump administration imposing tariffs on Chinese imports and urging a renaissance of American manufacturing, Apple is turning to a familiar playbook.
Chief Executive Tim Cook on Monday trumpeted plans to spend $500 billion in the U.S. and add 20,000 jobs, highlighting a plan to open a server-manufacturing site in Houston and to double its Advanced Manufacturing Fund, which was formed in 2017 to invest in U.S. manufacturing projects, to $10 billion. Apple will work with its longtime manufacturing partner Foxconn for the Houston site.
Apple’s new jobs promises are slightly ahead of the company’s recent four-year pace, and the spending pledge is roughly on track with its recent investments, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis. The AI server production facility in Houston is new, but the company has yet to spell out how many people it will continuously employ beyond saying it will create thousands of jobs.
The announcement echoed one Apple made in 2021—at the start of Biden’s presidency—and another back in 2018 when Trump was first elected. Trump quickly responded Monday on his social-media platform Truth Social, “Thank you Tim Cook and Apple!!!”
Many pundits expect more corporate pledges to follow.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if they get bigger and bigger,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. “It feels like the shock and awe requires a bigger price tag with each announcement.” He is watching to see if companies actually follow through on their plans and doesn’t expect a change in overall business investment, in part because of the uncertainty caused by Trump’s tariffs.
Last month, Trump adviser and artificial-intelligence executive Elon Musk publicly questioned whether a $500 billion investment announcement by OpenAI’s Sam Altman, database company Oracle and investment giant SoftBank Group would come to fruition. The $500 billion sum includes projects the firms initiated during the Biden administration.
Hours after Trump had lauded the effort at a White House press conference, Musk said the companies didn’t have the money to deliver on their promises.
It is common for presidents from both parties to take credit for business investments and the local jobs they create. The Biden administration sought praise for several hundred billion dollars in projects it said were driven by a wave of tax credits, grants and loans for clean energy, chips and infrastructure efforts. Many of the projects have been delayed or shelved due to shifting business and political conditions, a familiar pattern around elections.
Companies have been under pressure to move more of their supply chains to the U.S. for many years. Much of the investment and hiring announced after Trump’s first presidential victory amounted to expansion that was already in the works, a Journal analysis found at the time. Among the not-so-new announcements: ramped-up production at Hyundai plants, warehouse hiring by Amazon.com, moving General Motors axle production to the U.S. from Mexico, and expanding a fighter-jet factory in Fort Worth, Texas.
“Every company caters to the administration’s needs,” said Daniel Keum, a professor at Columbia Business School. “They sugarcoat and repurpose existing investments.” He estimates that roughly 80% of these announcements reflect spending that was already in the works.
Apple CEO Tim Cook trumpeted plans to spend $500 billion in the U.S. and add 20,000 jobs.
In 2019, Apple and Cook took Trump on a tour of a facility in Austin, Texas, where workers assembled Mac Pro computers, even though the site had been in operation since 2013. “We’re seeing the beginning of a very powerful important plant,” said Trump standing next to Cook, as factory workers milled about in the background.
If Apple adds 20,000 jobs over the next four years, it would mark an acceleration in hiring. The company has added an average of about 19,000 U.S. workers every four years since 2013, but that figure is skewed by dramatic growth in 2012. In 2023, the most recent year available, Apple reported reducing its U.S. workforce by just over 4,500 people—a sharp reversal from the year before, when it added about 9,760 employees in the U.S.
Big investment plans don’t always pan out. Early in the first Trump presidency, electronics-maker Foxconn—one of Apple’s big suppliers—said in 2018 it would invest $10 billion and create up to 13,000 jobs at a liquid-crystal-display plant in Wisconsin. Trump stopped by the groundbreaking. Foxconn later scaled back its plans, cutting investment to just under $700 million and promising Wisconsin about 1,450 jobs.
Moreover, companies add and eliminate jobs continuously as demand and strategies shift. The 5.4 million new jobs the U.S. creates each month are offset by nearly as many separations, according to Labor Department data. The difference is net employment growth, such as the 143,000 jobs added in January.
Early in Trump’s first term, Walmart said it would add 10,000 jobs, mostly while opening, remodeling or relocating stores and expanding e-commerce. The company also eliminated a thousand white-collar jobs, all after reporting bigger job cuts tied to store closures the prior year. Overall, the retail giant’s workforce grew about as fast during Trump’s first term as it had in the prior four years. As of January, it continued to employ about 1.6 million in the U.S. and 2.1 million worldwide.
Similarly, GM’s announcement after Trump’s first election that it would spend $1 billion to create or keep 1,500 manufacturing jobs was more than offset by layoff plans. GM’s U.S. employment shrank during Trump’s first term, but more slowly than its foreign workforce. Its 97,000 U.S. employees make up nearly two thirds of its global workforce, up from about half in 2016.
After pioneering an outsourcing strategy to China decades ago, Apple has been limited with what manufacturing it can bring back to the U.S. In the past, Cook has been genuinely interested in potentially doing more in the U.S., but has come up mostly empty due to issues of cost, said people familiar with the chief executive’s thinking.
With the announcement made on Monday, Apple has found something it could justify domestically with assembling servers for its new artificial-intelligence products. Many U.S.-based AI giants are looking to bring server production back to the U.S. due in part to national security concerns, said Alan Yeung, a former U.S. executive for iPhone assembler Foxconn.
“More importantly, Apple can afford it,” said Yeung. “AI is a new market that can afford higher costs, as opposed to a phone or laptop, where everybody fights for the last nickel and dime.”
Businesses sugarcoat investment plans to appeal to new presidents
By
Aaron Tilley, Theo Francis and Amrith Ramkumar
Feb. 24, 2025 9:00 pm ET
iPhone boxes carry a stamp saying they are designed by Apple AAPL 0.63%increase; green up pointing triangle in California. Smaller print makes clear one of America’s biggest manufacturing successes is mostly imported from China, where millions of people working for overseas contractors assemble the phones.
Early in the second Trump administration, Apple and other companies are trying to quickly answer the president’s call to rouse American manufacturing. To do that, they are turning to investments and job growth that include previously planned spending or developments already under way.
Apple, like many of the most valuable U.S. companies, isn’t a major manufacturer. It designs products, writes software and creates chip blueprints, but outsources much of its production and markets the result. With the Trump administration imposing tariffs on Chinese imports and urging a renaissance of American manufacturing, Apple is turning to a familiar playbook.
Chief Executive Tim Cook on Monday trumpeted plans to spend $500 billion in the U.S. and add 20,000 jobs, highlighting a plan to open a server-manufacturing site in Houston and to double its Advanced Manufacturing Fund, which was formed in 2017 to invest in U.S. manufacturing projects, to $10 billion. Apple will work with its longtime manufacturing partner Foxconn for the Houston site.
Apple’s new jobs promises are slightly ahead of the company’s recent four-year pace, and the spending pledge is roughly on track with its recent investments, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis. The AI server production facility in Houston is new, but the company has yet to spell out how many people it will continuously employ beyond saying it will create thousands of jobs.
The announcement echoed one Apple made in 2021—at the start of Biden’s presidency—and another back in 2018 when Trump was first elected. Trump quickly responded Monday on his social-media platform Truth Social, “Thank you Tim Cook and Apple!!!”
Many pundits expect more corporate pledges to follow.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if they get bigger and bigger,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. “It feels like the shock and awe requires a bigger price tag with each announcement.” He is watching to see if companies actually follow through on their plans and doesn’t expect a change in overall business investment, in part because of the uncertainty caused by Trump’s tariffs.
Last month, Trump adviser and artificial-intelligence executive Elon Musk publicly questioned whether a $500 billion investment announcement by OpenAI’s Sam Altman, database company Oracle and investment giant SoftBank Group would come to fruition. The $500 billion sum includes projects the firms initiated during the Biden administration.
Hours after Trump had lauded the effort at a White House press conference, Musk said the companies didn’t have the money to deliver on their promises.
It is common for presidents from both parties to take credit for business investments and the local jobs they create. The Biden administration sought praise for several hundred billion dollars in projects it said were driven by a wave of tax credits, grants and loans for clean energy, chips and infrastructure efforts. Many of the projects have been delayed or shelved due to shifting business and political conditions, a familiar pattern around elections.
Companies have been under pressure to move more of their supply chains to the U.S. for many years. Much of the investment and hiring announced after Trump’s first presidential victory amounted to expansion that was already in the works, a Journal analysis found at the time. Among the not-so-new announcements: ramped-up production at Hyundai plants, warehouse hiring by Amazon.com, moving General Motors axle production to the U.S. from Mexico, and expanding a fighter-jet factory in Fort Worth, Texas.
“Every company caters to the administration’s needs,” said Daniel Keum, a professor at Columbia Business School. “They sugarcoat and repurpose existing investments.” He estimates that roughly 80% of these announcements reflect spending that was already in the works.
Apple CEO Tim Cook trumpeted plans to spend $500 billion in the U.S. and add 20,000 jobs.
In 2019, Apple and Cook took Trump on a tour of a facility in Austin, Texas, where workers assembled Mac Pro computers, even though the site had been in operation since 2013. “We’re seeing the beginning of a very powerful important plant,” said Trump standing next to Cook, as factory workers milled about in the background.
If Apple adds 20,000 jobs over the next four years, it would mark an acceleration in hiring. The company has added an average of about 19,000 U.S. workers every four years since 2013, but that figure is skewed by dramatic growth in 2012. In 2023, the most recent year available, Apple reported reducing its U.S. workforce by just over 4,500 people—a sharp reversal from the year before, when it added about 9,760 employees in the U.S.
Big investment plans don’t always pan out. Early in the first Trump presidency, electronics-maker Foxconn—one of Apple’s big suppliers—said in 2018 it would invest $10 billion and create up to 13,000 jobs at a liquid-crystal-display plant in Wisconsin. Trump stopped by the groundbreaking. Foxconn later scaled back its plans, cutting investment to just under $700 million and promising Wisconsin about 1,450 jobs.
Moreover, companies add and eliminate jobs continuously as demand and strategies shift. The 5.4 million new jobs the U.S. creates each month are offset by nearly as many separations, according to Labor Department data. The difference is net employment growth, such as the 143,000 jobs added in January.
Early in Trump’s first term, Walmart said it would add 10,000 jobs, mostly while opening, remodeling or relocating stores and expanding e-commerce. The company also eliminated a thousand white-collar jobs, all after reporting bigger job cuts tied to store closures the prior year. Overall, the retail giant’s workforce grew about as fast during Trump’s first term as it had in the prior four years. As of January, it continued to employ about 1.6 million in the U.S. and 2.1 million worldwide.
Similarly, GM’s announcement after Trump’s first election that it would spend $1 billion to create or keep 1,500 manufacturing jobs was more than offset by layoff plans. GM’s U.S. employment shrank during Trump’s first term, but more slowly than its foreign workforce. Its 97,000 U.S. employees make up nearly two thirds of its global workforce, up from about half in 2016.
After pioneering an outsourcing strategy to China decades ago, Apple has been limited with what manufacturing it can bring back to the U.S. In the past, Cook has been genuinely interested in potentially doing more in the U.S., but has come up mostly empty due to issues of cost, said people familiar with the chief executive’s thinking.
With the announcement made on Monday, Apple has found something it could justify domestically with assembling servers for its new artificial-intelligence products. Many U.S.-based AI giants are looking to bring server production back to the U.S. due in part to national security concerns, said Alan Yeung, a former U.S. executive for iPhone assembler Foxconn.
“More importantly, Apple can afford it,” said Yeung. “AI is a new market that can afford higher costs, as opposed to a phone or laptop, where everybody fights for the last nickel and dime.”
