> most of the things people attribute to him seem like guesses about a guy who was very hard to predict and often inconsistent. The author is doing the same. P

> most of the things people attribute to him seem like guesses about a guy who was very hard to predict and often inconsistent. The author is doing the same. Personal background has minimal impact in these kind of decisions. Policy is about what happens to other people for politicians (and billionaires). It made sense for apple to suck up, in order to avoid vindictiveness and extract benefits. If they get super lucky, the tide turns and they keep going as if nothing happended a couple of trillion dollars richer. If they are less lucky things get more authoritarian, they keep most of their autonomy extract more benefits, and dear leader keeps their balls in a small box on his desk. If they get unlucky, the mercurial dear leader decides he is done with them, and their companies get broken up at best, or they fall out of windows down the road. We have seen the last scenario play out in Russia, and the second one play out in China. Taking a stand and calling out what's happening might be the decent thing to do, but gets them nothing. This of course only applies to billionaires running huge companies, everyone else is pretty much better of making a stand.