Trump, Tim Cook, and the King’s Table: Over A Thousand Years of Heritage Meets a Few Decades of Silicon Valley Shine

State dinners at Buckingham Palace are usually the kind of occasions that roll together centuries of British tradition, silverware polished within an inch of its life, and more protocol than a thousand lawyers could draft in a lifetime.

Tonight, however, literally right now as I post this, the great and the good are standing for the UK and US national anthems, and have just sat down to begin dinner service.

The guest list had a distinctly transatlantic edge, being an official State visit.: Donald Trump, in London on a state visit, and Tim Cook, Apple’s famously understated CEO, both dining at the same royal table under the watchful eye of King Charles. Along with Jensen of course, who seems to manage to tag along on any sitting jamboree going, and Sam Altman. Blackrock’s CEO has nabbed a place sat next to Prime Minister Starmer. One expects more business may be done, than meets the eye, over canapé's and cocktails.

For Apple, it might explain why the stock is flying so high today.

Can you imagine the hot air, in that one dining room, providing the lift, after all)? Nothing says “confidence” quite like rubbing shoulders with royalty. After all, there’s little that rubs off better than a thousand years of inherited crown polish onto a company that’s only just celebrated its 49th birthday. America may be the younger country, and Apple a still-young firm compared to the monarch’s thousand-year lineage, but a little royal patina never hurts in markets that thrive on symbolism as much as numbers.

It’s an interesting tableau:

Trump, who fancies himself a monarch of sorts when he returns to the campaign trail; Tim Cook, the master of quiet power and operational control, who took Apple from Jobsian drama to trillion-dollar predictability; and Charles, who has perhaps more experience than anyone alive in balancing tradition with the uncomfortable realities of the present. Put them together and you have a dinner seating plan that could double as a metaphor for our times.

For Trump, it’s a chance to bask in the aura of heritage he so often tries to recreate with gold leaf and branding. For Cook, it’s an opportunity to project Apple’s importance not just in technology, but in culture, reassuring investors that Apple belongs not only in Cupertino, but also at the world’s most august tables. And for Charles, perhaps, it’s another test of diplomacy: how to make three courses feel like four centuries of continuity.

The markets, ever sensitive to storylines, seem to have bought the message wholesale. After all, with Trump, Cook, Jensen, Black Rock, and the King at one table, what symbolism more could anyone want, right? Apple stock purrrs, investors perhaps imagining that whatever dessert was served tonight carried a side order of divine right and compounded dividends.

It doesn’t matter that nothing tangible will emerge from the dinner beyond polite conversation and maybe the odd awkward silence. In the narrative-driven world of modern markets, the image of Tim Cook dining with a King while Trump occupies the same table is enough to suggest that Apple isn’t just a company anymore - it’s a cultural institution, rubbing shoulders with crown and constitution alike.

One imagines Jobs, looking down, might raise an eyebrow. He never much liked suits, and one suspects state dinners would have struck him as elaborate distractions. But the sight of his successor seated between centuries of monarchy and minutes of political theatre might have made even him smile and whisper “one more thing,” as he drops something into Trump’s beverage (Pol Roger Champagne, we’re told - Winston Churchill’s favourite marque).

So yes, the US may be young, and Apple younger still. But tonight, at least, it sits comfortably in the company of a thousand years of heritage, and a thousand more of protocol. And if the stock price keeps rising on the back of it, perhaps investors are simply buying into the story that royalty -literal or corporate - still matters.

I suppose the Fed cutting .25% may also have helped today’s action today, but really, how can the Fed really match over 1000 years of history, like The Royals? After all, their Dollar is only 100 years old, and has already lost 99% of its original value. Just saying ;)

On a serious note though, the speeches exchanged between Trump and Charles were extraordinarily warm, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard Trump be so gracious with his words, thanking the UK for launching the US on its path to success. You’re welcome, really 🫡

— Tommo_UK, London, 17th September 2025 

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