Outgoing Apple CEO Tim Cook’s resignation came at a funny time.
The Department of Justice announced April 21 that the leftist extremist Southern Poverty Law Center was indicted on multiple fraud charges for financing the very white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups it was claiming for years to be crusading against, to the tune of $3 million.
Following this, MRC Business recounted that Cook made a big, news-capturing stink to employees following the Charlottesville "Fine People Hoax" affair in 2017 that Apple was retaliating by donating $1 million into SPLC’s coffers. How does that look now? If our math is correct, that amounts to one-third of the funds SPLC is accused of having doled out on fraudulent grounds to extremist groups.
In addition, according to Fortune magazine at the time, “Cook also promised a donations button for the SPLC in his company’s iTunes digital store.” He apparently followed through, according to Fortune, which makes the political fallout following the SPLC’s scandal look ten times worse:
On Sunday, Apple (AAPL) officially launched that tool, giving users the opportunity to donate to the SPLC. The donations will be used to support the SPLC’s mission to monitor extremist and hate groups and alert law enforcement to their activities.
“Oops” doesn’t even begin to describe the level of embarrassment here.
🚨HAPPENING NOW: Justice Department announces indictment against Southern Poverty Law Center ("SPLC"). Our indictment alleges SPLC secretly funneled MORE THAN $3 MILLION in funds to members of white supremacist and extremist groups. pic.twitter.com/Ifpda94f7D
— U.S. Department of Justice (@TheJusticeDept) April 21, 2026
The announcement that Cook was retiring from the CEO position literally came just the day prior to the news that SPLC had been indicted. Coincidence? This could brutally taint his New York Times-dubbed record as leading “one of the most successful management runs in the history of American business.” Being financially tied to a potentially fraudulent, racially-charged organization that has made ravenously attacking conservatives its modus operandi doesn’t exactly do the aforementioned description any favors. We’ll let our readers decide on that one.
But Apple already positioned itself as one of the wokest, anti-conservative enterprises in America today. MRC’s Free Speech America division recently exposed Apple News as being the most extreme in suppressing stories from right-leaning sources for the month of March alone. Specifically, Apple News selected articles from left-leaning media outlets for 434 out of 592 total AllSides-rated stories in the top 20 of its morning editions throughout March. By contrast, only five articles in March were from right-leaning sources. This pattern had been observed by MRC throughout the year, and has drawn the scrutiny of the Federal Trade Commission, which put the company on notice in February for censoring conservatives.
The SPLC affair is yet the latest example of why being woke doesn't always pay dividends -- at least not under Trump.
