Apple CEO Tim Cook reassured staff that the company would “keep moving forward” and reiterated Apple’s commitment to diversity following Donald Trump’s presidential election win.
In a memo sent to U.S. staff Wednesday evening, and first reported by Buzzfeed, Cook didn’t mention Trump by name but said employees “can be confident that Apple’s North Star hasn’t changed.”
“I recall something Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said 50 years ago: ‘If you can’t fly, then run. If you can’t run, then walk. If you can’t walk, then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward,’” Cook wrote. “This advice is timeless, and a reminder that we only do great work and improve the world by moving forward.”
The letter also acknowledges that there are “uncertainties ahead.”
Trump said in January that if he were elected president, he’d force Apple to manufacture its products in the U.S. He repeatedly condemned outsourcing for the decline of American jobs during his campaign, criticizing companies from Ford to Nabisco.
In February, Trump called for a boycott of Apple because the company had refused to help the FBI unlock the phone of one of the shooters who killed 14 people in San Bernardino, California, last year.
Apple reportedly withheld support for the GOP convention because of Trump, in part due to his comments about minority groups, immigrants and women.
Though the company has struggled to improve the number of minorities and women in its workforce, Cook’s memo said that they would continue to support diversity:
Our products connect people everywhere, and they provide the tools for our customers to do great things to improve their lives and the world at large. Our company is open to all, and we celebrate the diversity of our team here in the United States and around the world ― regardless of what they look like, where they come from, how they worship or who they love.
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