As markets sold off late Wednesday, President Trump touted the domestic investments from Big Tech as companies like Apple (AAPL), Nvidia (NVDA), and others pledge billions to expand their respective footprints in the United States.
“Apple is going to spend $500 billion. They never spent money like that here,” Trump said, referencing the company’s plans to invest in its US operations over the next four years, which will include plans to build a new manufacturing factory, double its advanced manufacturing fund, and hire 20,000 people.
Apple (AAPL) shares still fell over 7% in after-hours trading given its exposure to countries set to be hit by increased tariffs.
Trump added that Apple’s investment will be matched by Oracle (ORCL), ChatGPT creator OpenAI, and Japanese conglomerate SoftBank (9984.T) — a nod to the $500 billion ‘Stargate’ AI venture announced earlier this year.
At the time, Trump claimed the venture would create “over 100,000 American jobs almost immediately.”
Plus, “Nvidia, a hot company, is investing hundreds of billions of dollars” into the US supply chain, Trump said. And “TSMC — the biggest and most important company in the world of chips from Taiwan — with no investment from us, is investing $200 billion.”
TSMC (TSM) announced last month that it plans to invest an additional $100 billion in advanced semiconductor manufacturing in the US. This is in addition to its ongoing $65 billion investment in its manufacturing operations in Phoenix, Ariz.
“They said the reason was No. 1, the election on Nov. 5. And No. 2, the tariffs,” Trump said. “They don’t want to pay the tariffs. And the way they’re not paying it is to build their plants here.”
Similar to Apple and other Big Tech players, semiconductor stocks also dropped in after-hours trade with Nvidia falling 5% while Broadcom (AVGO) and Intel (INTC) dropped 5% and 4%, respectively.
