It was the year that Silicon Valley stopped pretending to be guided by ideas and began to practice violent pragmatism.
The first year of Donald Trump's fresh word of office and his trade war ends with a series of bizarre, backroom deals. Apple gives the president gold gifts, and Intel gives you the shares to survive.
According to an analysis of Ars Technica service, the year 2025 in American technology passed under the sign of chaos and manual economical control. alternatively of uniform rules, technology companies had individual, frequently secret agreements with the Trump administration, which would have been considered corruption or nationalization a decade ago.
Apple: Gold for peace
The most curiosity case concerns Apple. In February Trump threatened with 60 percent work on anything from China that would kill the iPhone. Then he demanded production in the United States. How did Tim Cook solve this? He didn't decision the factories. Instead... He gave Trump a present.. In August, the president received a glass disk from Apple with a gold logo and signature by Tim Cook, celebrating the alleged "American Production Program". The effect? Trump withdrew from threats even though iPhones inactive flow from China. Analysts have no doubt: it was a tribute to the Lena who acted.
Intel and Nvidia: The country enters the game
Even more interesting was the chip manufacturers. In the case of Intel Trump, he requested the resignation of CEO Lip-Bu Tan. This 1 refused, but in return a deal was reached under which the U.S. government took over a 10% stake in Intel. The fresh York Times described this as the largest state intervention in the company since the rescue of banks in 2008, with the difference that Intel did not go bankrupt at all.
As far as Nvidia and AMD are concerned, in order to be able to sale advanced AI chips to China, the companies agreed to an different arrangement. They give the U.S. government 15% to even 25% of the gross from this sale. Experts are grabbing their heads due to the fact that it looks like it's legalizing sanctions violations in exchange for a commission for the state.
TikTok and packages from China
The end of the year besides brought the saga final with TikTok. ByteDance, the Chinese application owner, yet agreed to sale majority shares to US investors designated by Trump. ricocheted by average American consumers. In February, as part of the fight against inexpensive import, Trump abolished work exemptions for tiny packages (the alleged de minimis legal gap). The effect? The post office (USPS) completely stopped receiving shipments from China for 24 hours, causing paralysis in deliveries from platforms specified as Shein or Temu.
What's happening in 2026?
The U.S. ultimate Court is expected to decide in January whether the president of the United States has the right to impose specified duties alone (the rates changed this year 100 times!). If the conviction is unfavorable to Trump, the state may owe companies up to $1 trillion in returns. Tech-gigants, however, do not wait for convictions. They learned that in a fresh reality it is cheaper to buy a gold statue than to fight in court.
Apple's US investments are more than politics. It's an escape from the war on Taiwan.
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