Tim Cook: Apple doesn't donate to political candidates and PACs shouldn’t exist

I read that as "As long as you vote for what we want, we'll ignore anything else you may be doing". They can't escape politics if they want to influence (inter)national policies.

Corporate donations to political candidates are bright-line illegal, a (potentially criminal) campaign finance violation, so it would be surprising if Cook said anything else.

> He also said he doesn't believe that political action committee (PACs) should exist.

> PACs allow corporations and others to secretly donate large sums to campaigns.

This part has the facts all wrong which makes it harder to tell what is actually opposed; PAC donations are sharply limited and disclosed publicly by law, and while corporations can sponsor PACs they can only subsidize their administrative expenses, actual campaign donations cannot come from corporate funds, either directly or through PACs; PACs don't allow corporations to donate, and the donations PACs do make are neither secret nor large sums.)

Independent political expenditures as allowed by Citizens United (either directly by interested entities or by entities that collect donations specifically for that purpose, the latter of which are sometimes referred to as “SuperPACs”) allow secret, unlimited spending to promote or oppose candidates or measures, but cannot donate to campaigns or even legally coordinate with them.

It's not clear if Cook actually opposes PACs or SuperPACs, neither one of which actually matches the description of what the “PACs” he opposes are, or if he opposes some mythical thing which combines some features of PACs (donation to campaigns) with some of superPACs (unlimited quantity, secrecy, ability to use corporate funds for non-administrative functions).

Disregarding popular movements that's not how lobbying works at all. No private special interest group is going to be advertising the many ways in which it is trying to influence a person holding public office. You subscribe to a service providing you with personal data, you attend the same events, you help them. For example by commenting on or even drafting legislative texts.