Apple announces $1B fund to create advanced manufacturing jobs in the US

In his interview on CNBC’s Mad Money last evening, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced a new $1 billion fund to create advanced manufacturing jobs in the US.

Falling somewhat in line with President Donald Trump's vision of bringing back manufacturing jobs to the US, the Cupertino company said it would announce the first investment from its new fund later this month. Cook also said Apple plans to fund programs that could include teaching people how to write computer code to create apps, and will release more details about the effort this summer.

“By doing that, we can be the ripple in the pond. Because if we can create many manufacturing jobs around, those manufacturing jobs create more jobs around them because you have a service industry that builds up around them,” Cook said. Apparently, it’s not clear what the exact nature of those investments will be yet, and how they will deliver returns back to the new fund or Apple.

Apple had come under fire from President Donald Trump during his campaign because it manufactures most of its products in China. So Cook apparently also did some high moral talk. "A lot of people ask me, ‘Do you think it’s a company’s job to create jobs?’ and my response is a company should have values because a company is a collection of people. And people should have values, so by extension, a company should. And one of the things you do is give back,” Cook said.

He also reiterated Apple's claim that it has created 2 million jobs in the United States, 80,000 of which are directly at Apple and the rest coming from suppliers and software developers for the company's app ecosystem.

Cook also added that Apple would announce initiatives to support its current employees and add to their ranks, and to aid the software developers who make apps for Apple’s phones, watches and computers.