Apple to invest $30 billion, add 20,000 jobs over next 5 years
Tech giant says that -- factoring in current spending, product sales tax and taxes on employees' wages -- it expects to contribute $350 billion to the US economy.
Apple said that, thanks in part to overseas revenue, it plans to invest $30 billion over the next five years, including building a new US campus and creating 20,000 new jobs.
Apple CEO Tim Cook says the company will contribute $350 billion to the US economy by 2023.
The tech giant on Wednesday said that lower US taxes on international revenue will allow it to invest more heavily in this country. Much of that money will go toward capital expenditures, including more than $10 billion for data centers across the US. Apple already has data centers in seven US states and, on Wednesday, broke ground for a new data center in Reno, Nevada.
Apple, which described itself as "already the largest US taxpayer," said it anticipates directly contributing about $350 billion to the total US economy over the next five years. Besides new investments, that figure includes an expected $38 billion in taxes paid on the overseas revenue brought into the US, spending with US suppliers and manufacturers, taxes on Apple employees' wages and sales tax that consumers pay on Apple products.
"We believe deeply in the power of American ingenuity, and we are focusing our investments in areas where we can have a direct impact on job creation and job preparedness," CEO Tim Cook said in a statement.
Apple said it plans to build an Apple campus in a new location, initially to house customer technical support. The site will be announced later in the year.
The news comes about a week after GOP Sen. John Thune, chair of the US Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, wrote a letter to Cook asking why Apple purposely slowed down the processing performance of older iPhones.
Under heavy public scrutiny, Apple acknowledged without notifying customers that it slows down older phones. The company said that as batteries get older, they don't hold their charges as well as newer batteries, which can create problems in some situations such as colder weather.
Apple has about 130,000 full- and part-time employees around the world, with some 84,000 working in the US. Those figures also include Apple Store employees and not just the engineers, designers and others working for the parent company. It hasn't disclosed how many work in retail.
First published Jan. 17 at 10:46 a.m. PT.
Update, 11:03 a.m. PT: Adds background information.
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