Technology

The Big Story

Tim Cook hands over reins of Apple, but keeps political clout

Apple’s Tim Cook handed over the reins as CEO to John Ternus on Tuesday, but the technology giant won’t be losing his political clout and connections to Washington.

AP Photo/Alex Brandon

In his new role as executive chair of Apple’s board, Cook will focus on policy, leveraging the political muscle he’s built over the past 15 years to navigate the White House’s shifting trade policy and fierce competition with China.

Cook is a “major asset to Apple” regardless of his position, Dan Ives, partner and senior managing director at Yorkville Ives, told The Hill on Monday.

“It’s not just for Apple, but [Cook] plays a key role for the tech industry going into this landscape with AI, political debates in the U.S. around data centers, the U.S.-China battle for tech supremacy,” Ives said.

Announcing his decision to step down as CEO in April, Apple said Cook will “assist with certain aspects of the company” as executive chair, including “engaging with policymakers around the world.”

Specifically, Cook told Ternus he will manage Apple’s relationships with President Trump and the Chinese government, Bloomberg reported.

Cook, who served as Apple’s CEO since 2011, is among a handful of technology leaders who built a friendly rapport with Trump, despite occasional tensions in the president’s first and second terms.

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Welcome to The Hill’s Technology newsletter, we’re Julia Shapero and Miranda Nazzaro — tracking the latest moves from Capitol Hill to Silicon Valley.

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Essential Reads

How policy will be impacting the tech sector now and in the future:

Florida orders removal of Flock cameras from state highways

Florida is halting the use of automated license plate readers (LPRs), including Flock Safety’s controversial cameras, on state highways, its transportation department announced Monday. The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) said in a memo to local law enforcement agencies that they should “cease the issuance of all future requests for LPR systems within its jurisdictional authority.” The order comes as a growing …

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MapQuest tops Apple, Google Maps in downloads after refusing Trump’s ‘Lake America’ change

MapQuest has surged in popularity on the app charts after the mapping service said it would not rename Lake Ontario to “Lake America” after President Trump signed an executive order changing its name. The company said its mobile app received hundreds of thousands of downloads after it announced Thursday that the name Lake Ontario would remain on its apps, despite Trump directing the Interior Department to update …

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House Republican pushes back on Trump data center support: ‘I guess I’m backwards and poor’

GOP Rep. Tim Burchett (Tenn.) responded on Monday to President Trump’s statement that communities that oppose data center construction want to “end up being backwards and poor.” “I guess I’m backwards and poor,” he told MeidasTouch’s Pablo Manríquez on the House steps. The Tennessee Republican suggested data centers could be built in military installations instead of in communities. “We need more local control. We should …

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OpenAI: Apple’s trade secret theft accusation is baseless

OpenAI argued in a court filing Monday that Apple’s accusations of trade theft against the AI company are baseless, suggesting the problem instead lies in the iPhone maker’s policies. The ChatGPT maker pointed to Apple’s practice of encouraging employees to use personal accounts for work and its same-day offboarding process for creating the issues at the heart of the lawsuit. “This dispute is a mess of Apple’s own making, and …

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The Refresh

News we’ve flagged from the intersection of tech and other topics:

USDA to test satellites, AI to improve crop estimates (Reuters)
Donald Trump Jr.'s fund boosts Polymarket investment by about $300 million (The Wall Street Journal)

Crypto Corner

Financial institutions to launch stablecoin in 2027

AP Photo/Michael Dwyer

A group of 21 financial institutions are joining forces to issue a dollar-backed stablecoin in the first half of 2027.

They announced Tuesday that they plan to launch a company in the second half of 2026 to support the initiative, which aims to eventually issue stablecoins backed by other Group of Seven (G7) currencies.

The effort builds on an initial group of 10 banks that began exploring a potential stablecoin last October.

It includes Bank of America, Capitol One, Fidelity Investments, Goldman Sachs, Scotiabank, TD Bank Group, Wells Fargo, Deutsche Bank, Lloyds Banking Group and UBS, among others.

They intend to be complaint with both U.S. and European Union stablecoin frameworks, known as the GENIUS Act and MiCA respectively.

Notably, this initiative comes after a protracted battle between the banking and cryptocurrency industries over a provision on stablecoin rewards earlier this year.

The dispute, which centered on how far the GENIUS Act went in limiting stablecoin issuers from offering interest or yield payments, held up a separate crypto bill in the Senate for several months.

Crypto Corner is a daily feature focused on digital currency and its outlook in Washington.

In Other News

Branch out with other reads on The Hill:

Ocasio-Cortez: ‘Put a data center up in Mar-a-Lago’

Progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) quipped Monday that a company should build an AI data center near President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, after he said communities will be “backwards and poor” if they oppose the construction of such facilities. “How about we put one in Mar-a-Lago? I love that. Let’s put a data center up in Mar-a-Lago, we’ll see how backwards and poor he is in response to that,” Ocasio-Cortez …

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