Apple CEO Tim Cook today was scheduled to host a fundraiser for GOP House Majority Leader Paul Ryan. Ryan is one of the most visible leaders of his party, and as the Chronicle reports, the fact that a Silicon Valley darling is raising money for the party of Donald Trump has angered a different kind of Bay Area heavy hitter — House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.
“Poor Tim," Pelosi told the paper. "What a nice guy he is, but somebody gave him bad advice. He probably doesn’t think that much about politics.”
Although Apple and other big tech companies have made a habit of donating money to both sides of the aisle, the fact that Tim Cook is the person in question is definitely turning heads. Cook, you surely recall, is an out gay man who has publicly come out against Republican-backed anti-LGBTQ legislation. Just last year he published an op-ed in The Washington Post condemning a host of legislation including a specific bill that "would strip the salaries and pensions of [Texas] clerks who issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples."
"These bills rationalize injustice by pretending to defend something many of us hold dear," wrote Cook. "They go against the very principles our nation was founded on, and they have the potential to undo decades of progress toward greater equality."
This fundraiser, it should be noted, is purely personal — Cook is not doing this on behalf of Apple. This fact was not lost on Congresswoman Pelosi. “Everybody has the right to do whatever they want to do,” Pelosi told the Chronicle. “But when they say, ‘We don’t like what Trump says, but we’ll donate to his party,’ they’re either naive or they think we’re naive.”
According to The Almanac, the fundraiser is taking place at an undisclosed location in Menlo Park, and some of the money raised will go to a joint fundraising committee that helps fund Republican congressional campaigns.
Related: Feds Successfully Hack San Bernardino Shooter's iPhone, Drop Court Case Against Apple