Trump Calls Apple CEO ‘Tim Apple,’ the Internet Responds Hilariously

The CEO of Apple is named Tim Cook. He is, in fact, not named Tim Apple. But that didn’t stop the President of the United States from calling him that.

President Donald Trump mistakenly called the Apple CEO “Tim Apple” at an American Workforce Policy Advisory Board Meeting on Wednesday. After complimenting Cook and Apple on boosting jobs in the U.S., Trump proceeded to flub Cook’s name.

“You’ve really put a big investment in our country,” Trump said. “We appreciate it very much, Tim Apple.”

Interestingly, both Cook and Ivanka Trump — who were sitting on either side of the president during the meeting — did not react at all to the mistake. Neither one of them even cracked a smile, making it seem like it may have escaped notice.

But the internet, as you might expect, did not miss the flub. And it didn’t take long before the reaction tweets started to roll in.

To be fair, President Trump may have actually meant to say “Thanks Tim, Apple” — with a comma in between. Then again, this isn’t the first time he’s substituted the surname of a major corporate CEO with their company’s name.

Last year, Trump called Lockheed Martin’s CEO “Marillyn Lockheed.” Her name is, in fact, Marillyn Hewson.

And Cook, as a person with a sense of humor, actually joined in on the fun Thursday. He changed his name on Twitter from Tim Cook to “Tim ?.”

(That’s “Tim Apple Logo” for those of you not on Apple devices. The logo isn’t a Unicode character, so it won’t load properly on Windows or Android devices.)

For a bit of extra context, President Trump was complimenting Apple on its workforce expansion in the United States. Late last year, the Cupertino tech giant announced a massive expansion effort that would create upwards of 20,000 jobs in the U.S.

A more complete version of the quote that preceded “Tim Apple” can be seen below.

“People like Tim — you’re expanding all over and doing things that I really wanted you to do right from the beginning,” Trump said. “I used to say, ‘Tim, you gotta start doing it here,’ and you really have, you’ve really put a big investment in our country. We appreciate it very much, Tim Apple.”