Apple Inc. on Monday said it intends to invest more than $500 billion in the U.S. over the next four years, with plans to hire 20,000 people and open a new manufacturing factory in Houston.
“We are bullish on the future of American innovation, and we’re proud to build on our long-standing U.S. investments with this $500 billion commitment to our country’s future,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a statement.
The commitment, amid a flurry of spending proposals by Big Tech over the last several weeks, highlights how tech’s biggest companies are attempting to forge a closer relationship with President Donald Trump as his second administration imposes new 10% tariffs on China and other parts of the world. Apple manufactures its products, including iPhones, in China.
Last week, President Trump met with Cook and said the Apple CEO assured him the company would shift manufacturing from Mexico to the U.S. to avoid paying 25% tariffs. Earlier this month, Trump had announced tariffs against Mexico and Canada before pausing them for 30 days.
Under Apple’s ambitious spending plan, the 20,000 new jobs will focus on research and development, silicon engineering, AI, and machine learning, the company said. Additionally, Apple is doubling spending on a fund that supports advanced manufacturing and skills development to $10 billion.
Workers at the new 250,000-square-foot factory in Texas will produce servers for Apple Intelligence, Apple said. The facility is expected to open in 2026. Apple plans to expand in other states, including Arizona, California, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Oregon, and Washington. At a manufacturing facility in Arizona, Apple said it will spend heavily to produce advanced silicon that is used in its devices. In Detroit, the company said it’s opening a manufacturing academy that will offer free courses online and in person.
Apple’s pledge is similar to one it made in early 2018 during the first Trump administration. Back then, it vowed to create 20,000 new jobs as part of a $350 billion U.S. investment plan when Trump mulled a tariff that could have affected iPhones. The president ended up not targeting Apple’s phones.
Some analysts like UBS’s David Vogt, however, are skeptical and believe Apple’s promise “lacks substance.” For instance, the company spends about $10 billion a year on data center capital expenditures — far short of the $125 billion a year the new U.S. investment would require, he told Fortune.
Trump’s second election in November has prompted a swirl of spending initiatives by Big Tech. Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. said it plans to construct the world’s longest undersea cable to expand high-speed internet access globally. Stargate, a $500 billion AI infrastructure project helmed by OpenAI, Oracle Corp., and Softbank, is designed to build out data centers to power AI over four years.
Collectively, Amazon.com Inc., Meta, Microsoft, and Alphabet Inc.’s Google have earmarked $320 billion this year on AI-related projects, up from $246 billion in 2024, and $151 billion in 2023.
