Letter to Tim Cook 12.17.21

December 17, 2021

Tim Cook, CEO
Apple, Inc.
One Apple Park Way
Cupertino, CA 95014

Dear Tim Cook,

By now you and your colleagues may have noticed the full page ad by your competitor Samsung in the December 16, 2021 issue of the New York Times. The headline declares: “How to Keep Your Devices Out of the Landfill For Longer.”

Continuing the text:

“Samsung is on a mission to ensure its products stay in use for longer, following the three R’s, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. From providing the solutions needed for individuals to upcycling old devices at home, to operating almost 5000 mobile product repair centers, Samsung is partnering with people to find sustainable ways to reuse old smartphones… The company’s philosophy is that together we can foster the circular economy. “

Apple is the richest, most profitable company in the world, due to cheap, exploited Chinese labor and due to gouging phone and computer prices. You make so much profit that you are setting a world record for stock buybacks—such as burning $90 billion this year alone in unproductive stock buybacks. That means Apple management doesn’t want to find more productive and constructive uses for its surplus profits.

We expect a considered response by Apple to the implicit challenge established by Samsung, as outlined in the NY Times and its “get involved” website at nytimes.com/samsung-reduce-reuse-recycle. We also expect Apple to be less secretive and arrogant in its relations with the public here and around the world. We anticipate your reply within the next month, widely distributed, so that you do not continue to underestimate the growing outrage that is building up over the planet’s greediest, richest, miserly corporation. Your giant firm’s charitable contributions are ludicrous in their comparative parsimony. If you continue to ignore these aspects of corporate responsibility and continue to oppose fair federal income taxation of your profits, consider past corporate Goliaths who thought they were Empires onto themselves, paid very few taxes and see what happened to them. General Electric just being one of them.

Your reply is expected, because you cannot ignore the challenge posed by a company like Samsung.

Sincerely,

Ralph Nader

PO Box 19312

Washington DC, 20036