Axl Rose Thinks Apple’s CEO Has A Lot in Common with President Trump

William Bruce Rose Jr. — the famed and politically outspoken Guns N’ Roses frontman, known by his stage name, Axl Rose — has strong words for Apple’s comparatively soft-spoken Chief Executive, Tim Cook, likening the iPhone maker’s top boss in a recent Tweet to ‘the Donald Trump of the music industry.’

“Tim Cook is the Donald Trump of the music industry,” Rose said in a Tweet published to his official Twitter account this week, without further elaborating on exactly why he feels that way.

The comment, of course, is certainly no compliment to the executive who assumed control of Apple back in 2011 after the passing of its late co-founder and former CEO, Steve Jobs.

A brief scroll through Rose’s colorful Twitter feed reveals that the singer, pianist and record producer — a native of Lafayette, Indiana — has perhaps one of the strongest anti-Trump sentiments around. He’s posted a barrage of Tweets in the past criticizing the Trump administration on a number of fronts.

Rose has referred to the administration not only as the ‘US gold standard of what can be considered disgraceful’ but has also taken personal jabs at First Lady, Melania Trump. He equated the former model, whom Trump married in 2005 and has one child, to a harlot (while unloading a plethora of obscenities in the process).

Considering some his past comments, it’s clear Rose is no fan of Trump and never will be — but the fact that Tim Cook has suddenly been thrust into the arena, for comparison’s sake, raises obvious questions about what the songwriter was implying.

Rose’s comments may be an indirect reference to Apple Music, and what many in the industry have expressed as feelings of contempt towards digital music streaming platforms like Spotify and Pandora, too.

“As always, what annoys me about anything like that is that the artists get the short end of the stick. The CEO of whatever company is just rolling in it, on the pennies that others earn, they’re getting gazillions of dollars,” said Def Leopard guitarist, Phil Collen, in a 2016 interview with The Telegraph during which he was confronted on the matter.

It’s clear that most artists are opposed to digital music streaming services like Apple Music and Spotify — however with a worldwide subscriber base of around 36 million and counting, it’s safe to say that Apple Music isn’t going anywhere, anytime soon.