Could Apple’s new second headquarters land here?
As Amazon closes its year-long sweepstakes to find the perfect location to house its second headquarters, tech giant Apple is taking a quieter approach in its hunt to find a new spot.
According to multiple reports, Apple CEO Tim Cook has secretly met with North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper to discuss possibly putting a new customer service facility in the Raleigh-Durham area.
The Wall Street Journal reported that the undisclosed meeting was tucked into Cook’s very public agenda earlier this month when he delivered the commencement speech at Duke University.
Both Apple and Gov. Cooper’s office declined to comment.
In January, Apple first announced its plans to build a new campus and create 20,000 new jobs in the U.S. with the quarter trillion dollars in cash it plans to repatriate from overseas.
“The company plans to establish an Apple campus in a new location, which will initially house technical support for customers,” Apple said in a statement in January. “The location of this new facility will be announced later in the year.”
But since then, Cook has been very mum on the company’s efforts in finding a location. In March, Cook said that he wouldn’t be discussing its search efforts because it doesn’t believe in the “beauty contest’ approach.
However, he did tell ABC News they have narrowed down the list.
Last week, the Washington Post reported that Apple representatives have also spoken with officials in Virginia about options near Washington, D.C.