Moments after departing Austin on Wednesday evening, President Donald Trump took credit for opening the site where Apple Inc. assembles Mac Pro desktop computers. The plant has been operational for about six years.
“Today I opened a major Apple Manufacturing plant in Texas that will bring high paying jobs back to America,” Trump tweeted from Air Force One. “Today Nancy Pelosi closed Congress because she doesn’t care about American Workers!”
Although the White House touted the plant as a new manufacturing facility ahead of Trump’s arrival, Flextronics America, in Northwest Austin,
has been a Mac Pro production site since 2013.
The 244,000-square-foot Flextronics plant that Trump visited on Wednesday employs about 500 workers, and Apple said it has invested more than $200 million in the facility.
Apple has rapidly expanded in Austin in recent years. The company announced Wednesday that it broke ground on its $1 billion campus, which will be located less than a mile from its current corporate campus on Parmer Lane.
The new campus initially will employ 5,000 people and will have room to expand up to 15,000 employees, Apple has said.
And this year, the company confirmed it has a short-term lease for the entire Riata Corporate Park 8 building, less than a mile from Apple’s existing campus. Apple also confirmed that it has leased a building at North Austin’s Parmer Innovation Center.
Austin is Apple’s largest hub outside of its Cupertino, Calif. headquarters.
Early Thursday, Trump tweeted again about his Austin visit, saying he had encouraged Apple CEO Tim Cook to “get Apple involved in building 5G in the U.S.”
“They have it all - Money, Technology, Vision & Cook!” Trump tweeted.
In a White House speech in April, Trump touted that faster, more secure 5G mobile communication networks “will transform the way our citizens work, learn, communicate, and travel.”
“Basically, it covers almost everything, when you get right down to it. Pretty amazing,” he said.
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