Donald Trump says Tim Cook is a better Apple CEO than Steve Jobs

Former President Donald Trump on Thursday said Apple (AAPL+0.17%) needed a CEO like Tim Cook to be as successful as it is now, rather than Steve Jobs, the company’s founder.

“I believe that if Tim Cook didn’t run Apple if Steve Jobs did, it wouldn’t be nearly as successful as it is now,” Trump said on an episode of the PBD Podcast filmed on Wednesday and released on Thursday. “I think so because I think Tim Cook has done an amazing job, and I’m not knocking Steve Jobs, but it wouldn’t have been the same.”

The kind words from the Republican presidential nominee are emblematic of the close relationship Cook fostered with Trump while he was in office. Cook frequently called Trump when he was president, sat on the administration’s Workforce Policy Advisory Board, and hosted Trump at Apple’s Austin, Texas, campus.

In 2019, after Cook managed to convince Trump to get Apple an exemption from a series of tariffs affecting Chinese imports, Cook gifted the then-president with one of the first Mac Pros built at its new U.S. facility. In an interview with Bloomberg News in June, Trump remarked that he found Cook to be “a very good businessman.”

“Tim Cook calls Donald Trump directly,” Trump told reporters in August 2019. “That’s why he’s a great executive because he calls me, and others don’t.”

During the podcast, Trump also said Cook had called to discuss the billions of dollars the European Union has fined Apple, adding that he won’t let the bloc “take advantage” of American companies if he wins the November election.

“Two hours ago, three hours ago, he called me,” Trump said, before discussing the bloc’s recent actions.

An E.U. judge in September ruled that Apple must pay back almost $15 billion in unpaid taxes. In March, the bloc’s regulatory arm fined Apple almost $2 billion for abusing its dominant position its the distribution of music streaming apps like Spotify (SPOT-1.25%) or its own Apple Music.

“He said they’re using that to run their enterprise, meaning Europe is their enterprise. “I said, ‘That’s a lot… But Tim, I got to get elected first, but I’m not going to let them take advantage of our companies — that won’t, you know, be happening.’”